A Supreme Court candidate, Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu, has urged Ghana’s leaders to invest in legal education to increase its availability.
He explained that significant investments in legal education would pave the way for the creation of competent, professional lawyers.
“If it is decentralisation, then it is already in place. We have Makola School of Law, and one in Kumasi and Madina as well,” Justice Asiedu mentioned.
Justice Adibu Asiedu said this on Wednesday when he appeared before Parliament’s Appointment Committee as part of the ongoing vetting of Supreme Court nominees.
“The Kumasi Makola that I referred to, doesn’t have a campus of its own, so we need investment in infrastructure if we want to make headway,” He also advised prospective law students not to give up on their first attempt at the Ghana Law School entrance exams, he added.
He also advised aspiring law students not to give up if they fail the Ghana Law School entrance exam on their first attempt, but to keep trying until they get in.
He used his brother as an example of a prospective law student who took the entrance exam three times before getting his chance.
“Mr Chairman, I will not ask any young man to change the profession he aspires to attain. My brother wrote the law school entrance exams, the first time he failed, he wanted to stop and I told him that he should write it as many times as will get him to pass.”
“He passed on the third count…So the advice I will give to the young ones is that they should learn and learn, write and continue to write till they pass the exams so that they can enter the Law School,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo nominated four people in July to fill expected vacancies on the Supreme Court: three justices of the Court of Appeal and one justice of the High Court.
Justice Barbara Frances Ackah-Yensu, Justice George Kingsley Koomson, and Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu are the nominees from the Court of Appeal.
The only nominee from the High Court is Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu.
The Appointments Committee of Parliament began vetting four Supreme Court justice nominees on Tuesday.
Justices Barbara Frances Ackah-Yensu, George Kingsley Koomson, and Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu are judges that have been vetted so far.
Their nominations are now subject to approval or rejection by Parliament.
Source: The Independent Ghana