A current member of the General Legal Council (GLC) has called for the Council to be scrapped and replaced with a new, accountable legal education authority.
Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Monday night, Madina MP Francis-Xavier Sosu described the GLC as an outdated and opaque institution that no longer serves the public interest.
“In fact, one of the bills I introduced in the eighth parliament was to dissolve the General Legal Council,” he revealed, stressing that despite now serving on the council, his views have not changed.
“Interestingly, it is such an irony that today I am a member of the council appointed by the Attorney General. But I made a strong argument then, and I still stand by those views.”
The MP said the GLC’s structure and functions are deeply flawed.
“It is a bit amorphous, and its composition and its function are a bit problematic. It’s not as accountable as it’s supposed to be to the system,” he stated, pointing to numerous past cases where individuals who challenged the council or the Board of Legal Education were met with opacity rather than transparency.
His comments aligned with earlier remarks made on the same show by former Director of the Ghana School of Law, Prof. Kwaku Ansa-Asare, who also called for the GLC’s overhaul.
“I wholly, wholly agree with Prof. Ansa-Asare about the need to replace that council, particularly the aspect of the council that deals with legal education, with the Council of Legal Education,” Mr Sosu said.
The MP also disclosed that reforms are already underway. “It’s because the bill is being finalised at cabinet level… either this week or next week that we’ll be bringing the bill to the floor.”
However, he noted that the final draft of the bill is not yet public.
“We cannot have the benefit of the final draft of the bill,” he said, but expressed hope that the proposed reforms will include the complete replacement of the GLC’s legal education mandate.
Francis Sosu assured viewers that Parliament still has the power to shape the outcome.
“The good thing is that I serve on the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. All of us as Members of Parliament still have an opportunity to amend parts of the bill to ensure that these aspirations that we are talking about—we can achieve them.”
According to the MP, this moment presents an opportunity to correct long-standing structural issues.
“What we seek to do now is to make sure that we correct the ills in the society or the ills or the challenges that we currently have with legal education, which also borders on the way the council also operates.”
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