Former running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, known popularly as Napo, has raised concerns on the Legal Education Bill 2025.
According to him, legal education must remain the core mandate of the General Legal Council, with the government providing support.
He holds the view that the government must not direct how legal education should be because that is the global best practice.
Napo believes that the future of the legal profession must be protected at all costs, adding that the training of lawyers should never be subordinated to political control.
Making this position known in a post shared via social media, he said, “The Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025 is worrying.
Legal education must remain the core mandate of the General Legal Council, with government providing support, not direction, in line with global best practice.
The future of Ghana’s the legal profession must be protected and the training of lawyers should never be subordinated to political control”.
What Is The Legal Education Reform Bill?
The Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025 proposes reforms aimed at expanding access to legal education while maintaining high standards in teaching, learning, and outcomes. The Bill seeks to achieve this by separating the regulation of legal education from the regulation of the legal profession, while also strengthening the bar association’s role in setting and enforcing standards for legal education.
Under the Bill, professional legal education and training would move from the Ghana School of Law to accredited universities. It introduces a Law Practice Training Course to be offered by these universities to prepare eligible candidates for a National Bar Examination. The course will focus mainly on clinical legal education, with an emphasis on practical lawyering skills rather than purely theoretical instruction.
Applicants who hold a Bachelor of Laws degree or another approved first degree in law will be required to apply for admission to the Law Practice Training Course at an accredited university. Only after completing this step will they be eligible to apply to sit for the National Bar Examination.
