Judicial and legal officers are appointed by the Judicial and Legal Service Commission by virtue of sections 85 and 86 of the Constitution. After decades of debate about the  need for judicial training prior to appointment as Judge or Magistrate, the Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies (IJLS) was finally set up, during my tenure as Attorney General, in 2011. In accordance with section 5 of the Institute for Judicial and Legal  Studies Act 2011, the Institute has the functions, inter alia, to devise, organize and conduct courses for prospective judicial and legal officers.

Consequently, the Law Practitioners Act was also amended in 2011 to include a new section 9(c) which states: (1) Any person who wishes to be considered for appointment as a Judge, Magistrate or legal officer shall follow a course referred to in subsection (2) which shall be approved by the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (2) The Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies shall devise one or more courses with a view to enabling persons referred to in subsection(1) to familiarise themselves with the duties which they will be required to perform in the office to which they wish to appointed (3) Where a person has followed a course in accordance with this section, the Institute shall forward to the Judicial and Legal Services Commission a report of the person’s attendance and performance.

Therefore sections 85 and 86 of the Constitution should be read together with section 9 (c) of the Law Practitioners Act and section 5 of the Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies Act.  In short, according to law as it stands now, a person aspiring to be appointed as Judge, Magistrate or legal officer needs to follow a course to be conducted by the Institute prior to such appointment.

The legal profession and the public at large will be dismayed to learn that the Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies has not conducted any course for prospective judicial and legal offices since 2013, although a number of persons have since been appointed to these positions. These appointments are clearly in breach of section 9 (c) of the Law Practitioners Act. It is also surprising to note that the Judicial and Legal Service Commission does not even require a person to follow these courses to be eligible for appointment, in total disregard of the intention of the legislator. Was any instruction given to the IJLS to stop such training and if so, by whom and why?

It has, over the years, been argued that a person cannot be at the Bar or be a law officer on one day and be appointed as a judicial officer the next, explaining the necessity for judicial training. The setting up of the Institute in 2011 was acclaimed both locally and internationally and a memorandum of understanding was even signed with the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature de Bordeaux. Judicial training and Continuous Professional Development for the legal profession should have been the ethos of the IJLS. It is sad that only few years after its setting up, judicial training has been relegated.

It is an irony that those who are supposed to uphold the law of the land have been appointed, seemingly, without observance of the provisions of the law. The Judicial and Legal Services Commission and the Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies owe an explanation to the public as to why section 9(c) of the Law Practitioners Act is not being adhered to and the reasons as to why training  for prospective judicial and legal officers is no longer on the agenda.