499 Students: Former MP backs Parliament’s directive to Ghana Law School

Former Member of Parliament for the Offinso South Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Ben Abdallah Banda, has backed the directive by parliament to the Ghana Law School to admit the 499 students who passed the Law School Entrance Exams.

The former Chairman of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament is of the view that parliament has every right to direct the Ghana Law School to admit students who passed the exams.

This reaction from the lawyer follows the position taken by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah-Dame that parliament has no legal backing to issue a direct order to the law school as far as admission of students are concerned.

Godfred Yeboah-Dame in letter to the Speaker of Parliament, following the resolution of parliament noted that “whilst recognizing the general legislative powers of Parliament in Ghana, except as have been circumscribed by the Constitution, I am constrained to advise that Parliament is devoid of power through the use of Parliamentary resolutions, to control the process of admission into the Ghana School of Law.”

But Ben Abdallah Banda believes the approach of the Attorney-General was not the best. He opines that the Minister of Justice could have registered his resentment with parliament’s directive through the Majority Leader or the 1st Deputy Speaker so that an amicably solution could be found.

Speaking in an interview on Accra-based media station monitored by ABC News, He however maintained that the oversight responsibility function of parliament over every state institution gives the house every right to direct the Ghana Law School.

He added that although the General Legal Council (GLC) has some level of autonomy, which he describes as not absolute, parliament has every right to step in and correct any anomaly committed by any state institution.

“The fact of the matter is that Parliament as an institution has oversight responsibility over all government institutions in Ghana. The same way to some extent on the Judiciary,” the current Special Coordinator of the Zongo Development Secretariat noted.

He continued that, “General Legal Council has some kind of autonomy. But the autonomy is not absolute. The oversight responsibility also means that parliament has the right to correct any mistake of any government institution. No one is above the powers of parliament to have oversight responsibility over that institution.”

“So parliament has every right to do what they did,” Ben Abdallah Banda emphasized.

Source: abcnewsgh