Moi University has yesterday took its law school’s accreditation row with the Council for Legal Education (CLE) to court as details emerged how last week’s order that stopped the teaching of legal courses at the institution was reached.
The university faulted CLE for failing to issue a public notice inviting the public to participate before taking the drastic decision. It claimed that the council’s demand that the university provides a closure report in respect of the current students for consideration within the next two months was in gross violation of the right to education for the more than 1,000 students enrolled in the course.
The university sought from the court an order suspending the closure of its law campus and restoring the status quo to enable it continue operating as a legal education provider, pending the hearing and determination of its case.
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High Court judge Joseph Onguto, however, declined to handle the matter and withdrew from hearing the case. “My association with CLE ceased hardly 10 months ago. Consequently, a reasonable and fair minded observer with full facts would not deem me as the person to fairly and impartially adjudicate on this matter and I consequently recuse myself,” he said.
Moi University’s legal officer Wilkister Simiyu said CLE had ordered closure of the university after an August 28 onsite inspection by its Quality Assurance and Compliance Committee for the Bachelors of Law (LLB) programme whose report was attached to the September 23 letter that communicated the decision.
Records of the council’s engagement with the university show that Moi made a string of unfulfilled promises that ultimately culminated in the decision to close the law school. The school – which had 1,450 students – did not meet the nine parameters required to achieve accreditation from the regulator, according to the inspection report.
The damning 29-page audit details a university offering an undergraduate law programme that was systemically flawed in terms of curriculum, academic staff, infrastructure, library, admission requirements and class sizes.
It even found a quack in the School of Law faculty where only three members of staff have doctorate degrees in law. Moi University has been offering Bachelor’s degree in law since 1994.
“The status of one Dr Daniel Kirui, who has neither an LLB nor PhD in law but taught at the school of law was found wanting,” reads the report. “He does not count in the computation of the staff to student ratio.”
Moi University’s Town Annex Campus was also found to have begun offering Master’s degree in law programmes without seeking clearance from the council. The report shows that the council visited Moi University’s law school numerous times since the year 2009 culminating in the final inspection held on August 28, 2015 – during which a decision was made to close the school.
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