Court orders law school to admit graduate into advocates training programme

The High Court in Mombasa has ordered the Kenya School of Law to admit a law graduate into its advocates training programme.

Justice John Mativo also quashed KSL’s decision in 2019 not to admit Ms Sabrina Jelani into the programme.

All law graduates are required to attend the training before they are allowed to practise as advocates in Kenya.

KSL had said that Ms Jelani did not meet the admission criteria and she sued to challenge the decision.

Justice Mativo said that the refusal to admit Ms Jelani breached her right to education as guaranteed in the Constitution.

“The Constitution provides that the Bill of Rights binds all state organs, thus KSL has an obligation to respect them (Bill of Rights),” he said.

He added that any actions that limit or diminish the right to education violates the Constitution.

The court also noted that a reading of the petitioner’s qualifications left no doubt that she qualified for the training programme, in addition to the requirements set out in the regulations.

The judge said that the issues raised in this case had been litigated before and determined in numerous cases filed against KSL by students seeking to be admitted to the training programme.

He said KSL had been found to have misunderstood the law governing credentials for eligibility into the advocates training programme.

The judge also prohibited KSL from enforcing its decision declining to admit the petitioner to the training programme.

Ms Jelani had accused KSL of abusing its powers in order to infringe her rights and deny her an opportunity to access and complete her education.

In her petition at the High Court in Mombasa, she wanted a declaration that she had met the minimum requirements for admission to the training programme.

Ms Jelani also wanted an order issued compelling KSL to admit her for the 2021/2022 academic year or for any other academic period.

The petitioner said KSL informed her that her application was unsuccessful as she had scored a mean grade of C-plain in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education instead of the minimum C-plus.

She argued the decision not to admit her was discriminatory as she had met the requirements for admission as set out in Section 5 (c) of the First Schedule of the Council of Legal Education (KSL) Regulations.

The petitioner said that she graduated from the University of Nairobi with a bachelor’s degree in law in 2019 and before that she completed a diploma course in human resource management from the same institution.

She reasoned that the diploma meant that she met one of the minimum requirements for admission into an undergraduate degree programme as stipulated in the Council of Legal Education (Accreditation of Legal Education Institutions) Regulations of 2009 and

Council of Legal Education Act.

She said KSL’s actions violated the rule of law and the Constitution for failing to respect and adhere to several court decisions ordering it not to discriminate and to admit students in similar circumstances as hers.

KSL did not file a response to the petition or submissions as directed by the court and the petition was heard unopposed.

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