Implementation of new legal education bill begins immediately – Ayine

Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dominic Ayine, says implementation of Ghana’s new legal education law will begin immediately following presidential assent.

Speaking to reporters on Monday after President John Dramani Mahama signed the Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, into law, Dr. Ayine said the government was ready to operationalise the sweeping reforms aimed at expanding access to professional legal education.

“Immediate implementation will start with the establishment of the Council for Legal Education, which is the body that will oversee legal education in the country,” he stated.

He added that the accreditation process for institutions expected to run professional law courses would also commence this year.

“We’ll also start the process of accreditation of the law schools that will be running the law practice course for those who have LLBs and desire to write the bar exam. All of that will start this year,” Dr. Ayine said.

The Attorney General described the legislation as a long-awaited reform intended to transform legal education and widen opportunities for aspiring lawyers across the country.

“As he himself said, this is a much-anticipated reform bill or reform law that is supposed to radically reform legal education to create equality of opportunity for persons aspiring to be lawyers in this country,” he noted.

Dr. Ayine further disclosed that the government would make financial allocations for the rollout of the reforms in next year’s national budget.

“We’ll be making budgetary provision for the implementation in the 2027 budget to be announced by the finance minister in November this year,” he explained.

The Attorney General addressed the media shortly after the signing ceremony at the Jubilee House, where he was joined by Majority Chief Whip, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, a long-time advocate of the bill in Parliament.

Earlier, President Mahama described the legislation as one many aspiring lawyers had anticipated for years, saying it would preserve high standards while expanding opportunities in legal education.

The new law ends the 66-year monopoly of the Ghana School of Law on professional legal education and allows accredited universities to offer professional law training programmes.