Thaddeus Sory urges separation of legal education from GLC’s control

Private legal practitioner and law lecturer, Thaddeus Sory, has urged the General Legal Council (GLC) to relinquish its authority over legal education to ensure transparency and fairness in the system.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on October 20, Mr. Sory said the GLC’s dual role in regulating and supervising training has blurred boundaries and fueled mistrust in how law students are admitted and assessed.

He argued that dividing the Council’s regulatory duties from legal education would bring clarity and enhance accountability. “I don’t think it diminishes or takes anything away from the law school,” he stated.

According to him, the Ghana School of Law could continue to train lawyers, but the process of qualifying to practice should not be determined solely by the GLC. “The students you train and those universities from which you push them, let them all write one exam, and let there be an overall body to assess which of them is a lawyer. That’s the bar exam,” he said.

Mr. Sory proposed the introduction of a national bar examination to standardize the assessment of law graduates, replacing the current entrance exams and interviews controlled by the GLC. “So let’s all go and write for the bar,” he remarked. “That’s all, and if you pass it, you pass, and it will take away this whole thing that a group of people sit down and they decide that, ‘oh, it’s Evans Mensah, well, let’s give it to him.’”

He questioned inconsistencies in how some individuals are called to the bar, saying the current setup allows questionable admissions. “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.

Mr. Sory added that a single national bar exam would “take away all of that” and rebuild public confidence. “It will allow some transparency,” he said.

He call for the General Legal Council to focus strictly on regulation. “The GLC has a lot of things to do. They should focus on that and leave the school education,” he advised.

For decades, legal education in Ghana has been centralized under the General Legal Council (GLC) and the Ghana School of Law (GSL), the only institution authorized to train students for the Bar.

This monopoly has been a major source of controversy, largely due to the limited admission slots, high failure rates, and lack of transparency in entrance examinations and interviews.

Over the years, calls have grown for reforms in the system. Many legal practitioners, including Thaddeus Sory, and advocacy groups such as the National Association of Law Students (NALS), have criticized the GLC, arguing that the Council should regulate the profession, not control training.

In July, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine announced a sweeping reform to Ghana’s legal education system that would abolish the current Ghana School of Law admissions structure and replace it with a national bar examination.

The reforms aim to decentralise professional legal training and expand access to the bar for all qualified LLB graduates.

Under the new model, students who obtain LLB degrees from accredited universities will undertake a one-year Bar Practice Programme at their respective institutions.

Upon completion, they will sit for a standardised national bar exam to qualify for legal practice.