Lawyer and law lecturer Thaddeus Sory has raised serious concerns about transparency in Ghana’s legal education system, suggesting that some individuals are being called to the Bar despite not meeting the necessary academic and attendance requirements.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on October 20, Mr. Sory questioned how some people manage to qualify as lawyers when their schedules make it impossible for them to meet the standards set by the Ghana School of Law.
“You suddenly hear that somebody has been called to the bar, and you are wondering at what point in time that person went through the law school,” he said.
“Because the person has a schedule which by no miracle the person could have attended that school regularly. By the policy of the school, which says you must attend a number of lectures and participate in a particular way, no miracle could have allowed that person to do it. But yet, they are calling people to the bar. You see the person there.”
He argued that the current system, which allows different law faculties to send students to the Ghana School of Law through entrance exams and interviews, lacks the transparency needed to ensure fairness and merit.
Mr. Sory proposed that all law graduates should instead sit for a single national bar examination that determines who qualifies to practice law, rather than allowing the existing process where discretion plays a major role.
“The law school could still train lawyers,” he explained, “but rather than take people from various universities and say they should write an entrance exam and come for an interview, let them all write one exam. Let there be an overall body to assess which of them is a lawyer. That’s a bar exam.”
He added that such a system would eliminate suspicions of favoritism or unfair advantage in the process of calling people to the Bar.
“At the end of the day, you have to write a national bar exam,” he said. “So I think that it will allow some transparency.”
When asked whether such a move would strip the General Legal Council (GLC) of its powers, Mr. Sory disagreed, saying the Council already has enough responsibilities.
“The GLC has a lot of things to do. They should focus on that and leave the school education,” he said.
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