Improve legal education to meet demands - Justice
A Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr Justice William Atuguba, has called on the Ghana Legal Council (GLC) to work with other stakeholders to improve on legal education and programmes to meet the increasing demands of the legal profession.
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He said there was the need for high quality lawyers to perform diverse legal services and activities, instead of the situation where members of the legal fraternity were basically confined to the courtrooms.
Conference
Mr Justice Atuguba was speaking at a three-day conference for experts to discuss and make meaningful contributions to the country’s legal education.
The conference, on the theme: “The future of legal education in Ghana”, was organised under the auspices of the GLC in Kumasi.
Mr Justice Atuguba said modern lawyers had to be multi-dimensional, for which reason they should not be trained for only courtroom purposes but in all other areas where their services could be more beneficial to society.
He said the key to sustaining the nation’s democracy and the rule of law was to put in place an impeccable legal system.
That, he said, could be achieved when legal education was properly reformed to achieve a practical appreciation of the law and the resolution of legal issues in all human fields of endeavour.
He called for investment in higher legal education, saying the current situation where none of the nation’s universities running legal education courses offered any Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programmes in law was not helpful and did not match up to global standards.
Mr Justice Atuguba said it was a disincentive to meeting the challenges of contemporary legal practice time, saying it was against that backdrop that all stakeholders should embrace the ongoing reforms to the benefit of the nation.
Foundation Dean
A professor of Law and Legal Education, who is also the Foundation Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Prof. Stephen Offei, said there was the need for the GLC to oversee the recruitment of staff to teach in Law faculties.
He said the proliferation of Law faculties in the country had given room for sub-standard lecturers to be engaged, saying the trend had also ensured the admission of students whose academic backgrounds did not allow them to pursue Law courses.
Other speakers
The Vice Chancellor of the KNUST, Prof. Kwasi Obiri-Danso, in a speech read on his behalf, urged the GLC to strengthen the university’s Faculty of Law.
The Dean of the KNUST Faculty of Law, Prof. Lydia Nkansah, expressed optimism that the brainstorming session would provide the right catalyst for improving legal education and practice in the country.
