A seven-member panel of the Supreme Court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse has set June 22 for judgment in the suit filed by Professor Kwaku Asare challenging the mode of admission into the Ghana Law School.
The case, which has seen delays and adjournments to the displeasure of both the Court and the Plaintiff, will be finally resolved on the date fixed by the apex court of the land.
Today in Court, all the parties to the suit indicated that they have agreed to, and filed a joint memorandum of issues and that they had no more processes to file.
Background
On October 15, 2015, Prof. Asare filed a suit against the GLC and set up four issues for the Court to determine: 1. Whether the General Legal Council’s imposition of new admission requirements for the professional course violates Articles 11(7), 297(d), 23, and 18(2) of the 1992 Constitution? 2. Whether Regulation 3(b) of LI 1296 is void-for-vagueness and is therefore facially unconstitutional and whether the General Legal Council unconstitutionally applied it to disqualify eligible students who had qualified for admission to pursue the Professional Law Course? 3. Whether the General Legal Council’s failure to specify alternative places and modes of instruction for all persons who meet the requirement in Regulation 2 of LI 1296, when taken in light of Section 13 of ACT 32, violates Articles 296(a)(b) and 297(b) of the 1992 Constitution? 4. Whether the General Legal Council’s policy on reviewing examination scripts and quota admissions violate Articles 23, 296(a)(b) and 18(2) of the 1992 Constitution?
While the Court’s rules required the AG and GLC to have responded by October 29, 2015, they responded on January 28, 2016 and April 14, 2016 respectively. In response to the delayed Statement of Defenses, Prof. Asare, pursuant to leave granted by the Court, filed an amended statement of case on June 15, 2016.
On 28th July 2016, the Court denied the plaintiff’s application to stop the GLC from holding the 2016 entrance examination.
Notwithstanding, the denial of the injunction, the substantive case was not called till February 9, 2017, when the case was adjourned till March 14, 2017 when the GLC announced that it had filed an amended Statement of defense, 9 clear months after the Plaintiff’s amended statement of case. It remains unclear why the Court allowed the GLC so much room to delay the proceedings when its actions, if the plaintiff is correct, offends the Constitution and denies qualified students the opportunity to pursue their law career.
