Law Lecturer Professor Kweku Asare has cast a damning verdict on the General Legal Council (GLC), describing it as an organization which is fast losing its credibility\ and ought to be dissolved.
According to Professor Kweku Asare, who was speaking on Onua FM’s morning show, it is either the people at the helm of affairs at the General Legal Council do not understand the law that set up the institution or can no longer manage it.
“Parliament has oversight responsibility to ensure that that body functions properly; they must get involved before that body General Legal Council becomes autocratic and dangerous. It must be dissolved. They are losing credibility.”
The General Legal Council is the main regulatory body set up in 1960 for the conduct and administration of legal education and profession in Ghana.
The Council is empowered and authorized to determine the policy and focus of legal education and training as well as the regulation of professional legal practice and ancillary matters in the country.
However, recently, the GLC has come under intense criticism from some of its members as well as the general public.
Professor Asare thinks the Council has over-lived its welcome and therefore called on Parliament to dissolve the body and reconstitute it.
“They are now behaving as if they are above the law. How do you send LI to Parliament without explaining why you want it amended. Parliament should throw that request away and hold them accountable. The LI sent is unprincipled.”
He explained that “nothing the General Legal Council does is proper,” saying Parliament should find out from the GLC “why they are not following LI 1296”.
“We must know why law students who fail our examination go to other countries and do well and when they return to this country, we take money from them.”
Professor Kweku Asare therefore asked for an independent examination board set up to evaluate the papers marked in line with the syllabus as the way forward towards resolving issues of the Ghana Law School.
Few months ago, Francis Xavier Sosu on Onua FM also descended heavily on the General Legal Council, describing the body as one of the lawless institutions in the country that has been victimizing lawyers.
In his view, members of the Council have formed a cartel which doesn’t regard due process to its work but only good at intimidating young lawyers.
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