General Legal Council — body that approved UBIDS School of Law for pre-bar courses and has had functions decoupled under the 2026 Legal Education Act, being dissolved to establish a new Council for Legal Education and Training.
… Attorney-General & General Legal Council (2017)*, stressing that administrative directives cannot override statutory provisions established by law. …
… The act established CLET as an independent statutory body, separating the regulation of legal training from the General Legal Council (GLC), which continues to set rules for the profession and call individuals to the Bar. …
… This legislation established the Council for Legal Education and Training to regulate the curriculum and standards for legal training, effectively decoupling certain regulatory functions from the General Legal Council as originally configured under the Legal Profession Act, 1960 …
… The Act separates legal education and training from the broader regulatory responsibilities traditionally exercised under the General Legal Council structure (section 89 defines the General Legal Council as that established under the old Act 32). …
… He also raised concerns over possible ambiguities in defining what constitutes a law programme, as well as potential overlaps between the General Legal Council and institutions responsible for legal education regulation. …
… The legislation, which seeks to reform the colonial-era structures of legal training in Ghana, has sparked a heated debate between students, the General Legal Council (GLC), and policymakers over whether the controversial entrance exam has been immediately scrapped. …
… Speaking at a post-signing press conference on Tuesday, Dr Ayine announced that the first major step would be the dissolution of the General Legal Council and the establishment of a new Council for Legal Education and Training to oversee legal education in the country. …
The Ghana Bar Association has called on the Judiciary and Executive to operate within the 1992 Constitution's limits, with its President raising concerns about comments attributed to the Chief Justice and reports that some judges may be serving Executive interests rather than the Constitution.
The Ghana Bar Association has called on the Judiciary and Executive to operate within the 1992 Constitution's limits, with its President raising concerns about comments attributed to the Chief Justice and reports that some judges may be serving Executive interests rather than the Constitution.
Ghana's Attorney-General has announced a proposed Legal Profession (Practitioners Standards Board) Bill to reform the disciplinary process for lawyers by establishing an independent Disciplinary Committee with clear procedures, separating investigation from adjudication, and eliminating conflicts of interest involving sitting judges on the General Legal Council's tribunal.
The rise of the Law Society of Ghana has ended the Ghana Bar Association's historic monopoly as the sole representative of the legal profession, triggering an existential crisis within the legal fraternity. The dispute stems partly from perceptions that the GBA is politically aligned with the NPP rather than speaking independently for the profession.
The Majority Chief Whip and Ghana Law Society President Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor criticised the Ghana Bar Association for responding to concerns from law firms over lawyer availability during Chief Justice proceedings, arguing that law firms are not GBA members and the association has no basis to respond to their petitions.
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The General Legal Council has approved UBIDS School of Law as one of 19 schools to run the one-year pre-bar course, enabling LLB graduates from UBIDS and other accredited law schools to prepare for admission into Professional Law Courses and the national bar examinations.
The Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170) and interim policy directives represent Ghana's most significant legal education reform since 1960, addressing a longstanding debate among legal educators, practitioners, and judges about the boundary between substantive legal education and professional legal training and who should deliver each.
An analysis in The Chronicle examines the legal and governance implications of interim policy directives issued by the Ghana School of Law on 12 June 2026, which were issued to address a regulatory vacuum created by the new Legal Education Act, 2026, pending the constitution of the Council for Legal Education and Training.
Vincent Ekow Assafuah, MP for Old Tafo, has raised concerns that Ghana's new legal education framework could indirectly reintroduce entrance examinations Parliament sought to abolish, as the interim directives allow institutions to set their own admission criteria for the Pre-Bar Course.
Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) and the Council for Legal Education and Training (CLET) have agreed on a unified accreditation system for Law programmes requiring a single application pathway, joint inspection, and unified evaluation matrix. Under the framework, GTEC will oversee institutional quality assurance while CLET addresses curriculum and professional training standards, with neither body able to grant full accreditation without the other's approval.
Ghana's Legal Education Act 2026 established the Council for Legal Education and Training to regulate legal training standards, decoupling some functions from the General Legal Council. Under Section 45 of the Act, individual law institutions now set their own minimum admission standards through entrance examinations or other assessments, subject to council oversight.
Ghana has enacted the Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170), replacing a framework established in 1960 that no longer suited the expanded legal education landscape. The new act aims to balance access, quality, professional competence, institutional accountability, and national development as law programmes have grown across public and private universities.
A GIMPA senior law lecturer has welcomed Ghana's newly passed Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, as a significant step that will ease barriers for law graduates seeking admission to professional training, but argues the reforms should have extended to paralegals, support staff, pupilage, and post-professional training structures. He cautioned that implementation will determine the success of the new framework and flagged concerns about ambiguities in defining law programmes and potential overlaps in regulatory responsibilities.
Kwaku Ansa-Asare, a former Director of the Ghana School of Law, has warned aspiring lawyers against challenging the legality of the 2026 entrance examinations in court, stating that any student who does so will lose. His warning comes amid confusion over whether the Legal Education Bill signed into law by President Mahama has immediately scrapped the controversial entrance exam.
Attorney General Dominic Ayine says the government will immediately implement Ghana's new legal education reforms following President Mahama's assent to the Legal Education Bill 2026. The reforms include dissolving the General Legal Council and establishing a new Council for Legal Education and Training to regulate and accredit institutions offering the Law Practice Course, aiming to widen access to professional legal training.