Budget and Appropriations Committee Gives Greenlight To Babu Owino's Legal Education Act Amendment.
Embakasi East lawmaker Babu Owino now wants section eight of the Legal Education Act of 2012 amended so as to provide accreditation of other legal education providers by the Council of Legal Education for the licensing and training of advocates.
Top among the legislator's recommendations is the scrapping of the requirement of having attained at least grade B in English and Kiswahili in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education to prevent one from being admitted into the Kenya School as it bars thousands of graduates from realizing their dreams of practising law as after being admitted into the bar
Appearing before the Budget and appropriations committee led by Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro, the vocal opposition MP argues that the requirement is unfair and is against the principle of career growth.
The amendment will also see the Council for Legal Education given the power to prescribe the requirements for one to be admitted into the law school
Owino, who appeared before the committee to defend his bill before it's tabled in the national assembly, says that the requirement is contradictory as universities offering law degrees can admit students to pursue law regardless of their grades in the two subjects only to be rejected at the Kenya School of Law where they are undertaking a one year course so as to be admitted to the bar.
With thousands of law graduates fail to be admitted to the bar as advocates due to them not being able to sit for their final exams at the Kenya School of Law leaving their four-year hard work on campus useless. However, there's hope for the graduates as the Budget and Appropriations committee agreed to adopt the bill with the Embakasi East MP given the green light to table the bill in parliament.
If the bill sees the light of day, there will be decentralization of the advocates' training program as the number of students admitted into various universities across the country continues to rise
