General News of Sunday, 23 October 2016

Source: kapital971.com

Abolish the Law School - Asante Bediatuo

Nana Asante Bediatuo, Legal Practitioner Nana Asante Bediatuo, Legal Practitioner

A private legal practitioner and traditional ruler, Nana Asante Bediatuo has called for the scrapping of the Ghana School of Law.

According to him the protective posture existing lawyers have taken to try and protect their market share by limiting the number of students who go through the Ghana school of law is wrong and illegal.

“If you look at the law it says that a person is entitled to go to the law school if they have an LLB.That is what the law says so I don’t see why the law school should now have a process which beyond the qualification they want to add another qualification”

“I think it talks about having good character and so on and so forth but some of the other things they are doing having extra entrance exams, interviews and all of that are not backed by law and so there is a difficulty for me as a matter of law.

“And I think that the resolution to that is frankly to abolish the law school” he emphasized.

The astute legal brain proffered some solutions to solving the age old problem of streamlining the law profession with what people perceive as the bureaucratic, needless law school.

“I think that the professional law programme they conduct at the law school should be a part of your training as a lawyer in whatever university you go to.

“So you get your LLB lets say at Legon or KNUST If you get the required grades then you go on to do your professional law course” he added.

Nana Asante Bediatuo advised the General legal Council to open up the law profession instead of trying to shutter people’s dreams with an arbitrary system that only seeks to protect the status quo and ensure those already in it enjoy a bigger share of the market.

He stressed that there should not be any bar to one’s ambition of becoming a fully fledged lawyer.

The fashion conscious legal brain questioned why persons with LLB degrees should always have their hands in their mouth just to gain entry into the Ghana School of Law.

He was however quick to add that some students who are being trained in some of these new law schools he has encountered left a lot to be desired but that concern should be addressed by the market.