Justice and Legal Affairs Committee Meets Babu Owino on His Legal Education Amendment Bill
Embakasi East MP Hon. Paul Ongili “Babu Owino” appeared before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC) that is chaired by Hon. George Gitonga Murugara (Tharaka), with a proposal on the Legal Education (Amendment) Bill, 2023.
The Bill seeks to amend Section 8 of the Legal Education Act, 2012; in order to confer upon the Council of Legal Education (CLE), the power to accredit legal education providers for the purpose of licensing of the Advocates Training Programme, in order to allow other institutions to offer the programme.
According to Hon. Owino, devolvement of Kenya School of Law to other Counties or Campuses, will ease the high student population in the Karen Campus.
“The number of universities offering LLB Degrees in Kenya has sharply increased over the years and therefore there is need for devolving so that we can have other institutions offering the Advocates Training Programmes. There is strain for the current Kenya School of Law facility in terms of resources and we also need to reduce the student-teacher ratio as the quality of training gets compromised.” Said Hon. Owino.
Further, amendment of the Act will require CLE to prescribe, through regulations, the admission requirements for persons seeking to enroll in all legal education programmes.
“This has been inspired by the conflict happening between the Kenya School of Law (KSL) Act and the Council for Legal Education (CLE) Act, and this had been handled earlier by Hon. Njeri Maina from this Committee. There are some students who are being discriminated upon to join KSL based on the grade that they scored in High School.” Stated Hon. Owino.
The Chairperson of the Committee Hon. Murugara affirmed that opening up the CLE Act will enable more institutions to offer legal education programmes.
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