Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo
Information available to DAILY GUIDE indicates that the 2018 Ghana School of Law entrance examination organised by the General Legal Council (GLC) last Friday was leaked.
The information indicates that moments before the writing of the examination, the question paper and its accompanying marking scheme were making rounds on social media.
This, according to the information, gave some candidates an unfair advantage over others who did not get access to the leaked question paper and the marking scheme.
Copies of the leaked documents, which have been sighted by DAILY GUIDE, indicate that the said question, which was a compulsory question, is a case study where candidates were expected to identify infractions in a contract between a construction firm and a hotel.
The marking scheme indicates that candidates who were able to accurately answer the question stand a chance of getting a total of 40 marks.
Interestingly, some candidates, who spoke to DAILY GUIDE on condition of anonymity, claimed the question paper and the marking scheme started making rounds on Whatsapp in the morning before the paper was written.
They claimed most candidates who wrote the examination at the New ‘N’ Block and Central Cafeteria of the University of Ghana were among those who had unfair access to the questions and the marking scheme while those who had theirs at the GCB Block gnashed their teeth.
Interestingly, the sources claimed they were not informed about any compulsory questions, only for them to realise that there was one, and some of their colleagues had been given an unfair advantage over them.
Probe/Cancellation
Meanwhile, some of the candidates who took part in the entrance examination this year are calling on the GLC to investigate the leakage.
They claimed after six months of tutorials and sleepless nights of learning, it will be unfair for some of them to have access to the paper at the expense of others.
They are therefore calling on the GLC to investigate the alleged leakage and if it is established that indeed the paper was leaked, it should be cancelled and re-set.
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Law Suit
About 1,800 candidates sat for this year’s entrance examinations hoping to gain admission into the Ghana School of Law.
It would be recalled that a US-based Ghanaian lawyer, who argued that the exams was unconstitutional, filed a lawsuit against the GLC.
The Supreme Court only gave the GLC the authorization to organise the exams after it dismissed an application for interlocutory injunction filed by Professor Kwaku Asare to stop the GLC from organizing the examination which was scheduled for last Friday.
Before a panel of five justices gave their ruling, they all stressed the need for the exams as a mechanism for quality control.
Justice Jones Dotse expressed concern about the quality of lawyers to be churned out if access to the school is not regulated.
Justice Alfred Benin also touched on the increasing number of applicants every year, saying if steps are not taken to address the issue of space, there will be chaos.
But just a day after the decision to dismiss the application for an interlocutory injunction on the examinations, claims have surfaced regarding how the examination paper and its marking scheme allegedly got leaked to some candidates.
Some aggrieved candidates could not fathom why the paper and the marking scheme got leaked under the supervision of the Independent Examination Board set up by the GLC which is responsible for marking the Law School exams.
The independent exams board said is to be headed by a prominent Supreme Court Justice, who recently retired from the bench.
Attempts to speak to the Director of the Law School, Kwasi Prempeh-Eck failed.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak