The Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Mary Chinery-Hesse, has called for a review of the legal education regime in the country.
Mary Chinery-Hesse explained that the need to take another look at the Legal Professions Act (Act 32) is to reflect the demands of the modern world.
“The world we live in has changed exponentially since the Legal Professions Act was passed 62 years ago and there is an urgent need for its revision to reflect these changes and make the training of lawyers in Ghana more relevant and in tune with the world we live in today.”
“I would like to reiterate the need to balance the training of the large number of lawyers that are needed in the country with the quality of education offered, as well as the provision of human and material resources of the institutions that train our lawyers,” she said at a graduation ceremony of the school of law.
Critics of the legal education regime have in the past called for reforms to improve access to the School of Law.
Last year, three Members of Parliament worked on a private member’s bill seeking to address challenges associated with legal education in Ghana.
The MPs wanted to bridge gaps in the current legal and regulatory framework by providing for critical aspects of legal education that remain either partially regulated or wholly regulated.
The MPs in their bill also recommended the decoupling of the administration and regulation of legal education from that of the legal profession.