General News of Thursday, 30 March 2017

Source: GNA

Expand access to legal training - Yeboah Dame

Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame

Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, the Deputy Minister-Designate of Justice and Attorney-General, has stressed the need to increase access to legal training in the country.

He said admission to the Ghana School of Law for LLB holders to pursue the professional law course had become a problem because of the limited space.

Mr Dame made the statement when he appeared before the Appointment Committee of Parliament in Accra on Wednesday.

The nominee, who is a private legal practitioner, is among the last batch of four ministers of state and 50 deputy ministers to be vetted by the Appointment Committee.

Mr Dame noted that though many universities had been approved to offer the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programmes, the Ghana School of Law was unable to accommodate the large numbers of students eager to pursue the professional law course.

He said part of the problem with the legal education was also due to the manner in which it was regulated.

Mr Dame said the universities, which were offering LLB, were doing so by virtue of having received accreditation to do the programme but the law profession itself was regulated by the Legal Profession Act (LPA).

He said the General Legal Council, which had oversight responsibility over legal education, had delegated that function to the Board of Legal Education by virtue of its powers under the LPA (Act 32).

Mr Dame said there was a situation where the Law School itself was fully managed by the General Legal Council but the Council did not have much control over the universities which were offering LLB.

He called for concerted efforts through a legal regime and physical space to fix the problem of access to LLB holders wanting to enter the Ghana School of Law.

Mr William Owuraku Aidoo, the Deputy Minister-Designate of Energy, who also appeared before the Appointment Committee, stated that the Government was committed to putting the Electricity Company of Ghana on the right footing to ensure that the problem of commercial losses was reduce.

He said there was a policy to ensure that 10 per cent of the energy requirement of the country would be renewables.

Mr Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, the Deputy Minister-Designate of Justice and Attorney-General, told the Appointment Committee that it was time a moratorium on illegal mining was put in place by the appropriate regulators to enable an audit of destruction caused the environment by the illegal miners.

He called for a ban on the activities of illegal miners to enable the restructuring of the environment.

He said illegal mining, known as galamsey, was similar to committing mass murder and must be "completely banned”.