Laws Schools must maintain standards – CJ

The Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Wood has noted that the proliferation of faculties of law in the past decade has not been accompanied by the promotion and maintenance of standards.

According to her, different faculties had sprung up with wide and differential standards in teaching, pedagogy and standards.

The CJ made the observation at the 53rd enrollment of 219 newly trained lawyers at the state house in Accra on Friday.

Mrs Wood said some schools do not have the critical wherewithal to run law programmes because "these schools do not have full time faculties and lacked library facilities."

According to her, setting and running law schools for some individuals has become economic proposition and entrepreneurs have seen it as an investment opportunity.

She said although the National Accreditation Board had done a good job in ensuring that standards were maintained, the requirement met before schools were set up, owners of these school employed evasive techniques following their initial accreditation.

The CJ said the General Legal Council was collaborating with the National Accreditation Board to intensify accreditation of faculties of law following the initial offer.

“While opening up of faculties of law is a good thing, generally speaking, shambolic legal education can only spell doom for our young democracy,” she said.

Mrs Wood noted that what Ghana needed was “good lawyers, not justice lawyers for the sake of their production. When we produce good lawyers, we shall have very little difficulty in attracting some of the best lawyers to the bench.”

She mentioned the setting up of the Independent Examinations Board as one of the reforms embarked on.

According to her, the highly efficient and competent manner the board had handled the conduct of examinations and integrity surrounding these examinations spoke volumes of prospects.

The CJ announced that the General Legal Council would engage in consultative deliberations to finalize the reforms in legal education in the country so it would reflect international best practices.