An Act of Parliament to amend the Legal Education Act, 2012.
| PROPOSED PROVISION FOR AMENDMENT | PROPOSED AMENDMENT | OUR COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|
Clause 2 Amendment of section 8 of No. 27 of 2012 | Section 8 of the Legal Education Act, 2012, is amended: a. in subsection (2) by inserting the following new paragraph immediately after paragraph (a): "(aa) accreditation of legal education providers for the purpose of licensing of the Advocates Training Programme;" b. in subsection (3) by inserting the word "all" immediately after the words "enroll in" appearing in paragraph (a). | Currently, there exists a monopoly as the Kenya School of Law (“KSL”) is the only institution that offers the Advocates Training Programme (“ATP”). This proposal seeks to remove the monopoly by allowing both public and private universities to offer the ATP course. Furthermore, this proposal will reduce congestion of students at KSL. The KSL Strategic Plan for 2022/2023-2027/2028 listed the following as benefits for allowing other institutions to offer the ATP course: a. It will decentralize the ATP; b. It enhances quality and accessibility of legal training; c. It enhances student experience and welfare; and d. It enhances business sustainability strategies. |
| There is a need for the National Assembly to harmonize the Legal Education Act, the KSL Act, and their regulations. Section 16 of the KSL Act as read with the Second Schedule to the Act contains the admission requirements for all legal education programmes (i.e., ATP, Para-Legal programme and the Continuing Professional Development programme). This means that admission requirements under the KSL Act are prescribed by KSL. On the other hand, this Bill seeks to change this as it seeks to mandate the Council of Legal Education to prescribe the admission requirements for persons seeking to enroll in all legal education programmes. Secondly, there exists a conflict between the KSL Act and the Legal Education (Accreditation and Quality Assurance) Regulations, 2016 (“the 2016 Regulations”). The 2016 Regulations do not require ATP applicants to provide their KCSE grades unlike the KSL Act which does. In Republic v Kenya School of Law & Council of Legal Education Ex-Parte Daniel Mwaura Marai [2017] eKLR, the Court concluded that the 2016 Regulations conflicted with the provisions of section 16 of the KSL Act as read with the Second Schedule to the Act. However, it is important to note that the provisions of the 2016 Regulations cannot override the express provisions of section 16 of the KSL Act. These were the sentiments of the Court in Republic v Kenya School of Law [2019] eKLR. Consequently, Parliament needs to exercise its constitutional mandate and harmonize the two statutes and their regulations to be consistent with one another. |