Your degree alone is not enough, LSB tells GUC graduates

Spira Tlhankane | Monday September 7, 2026 09:15

At stake are 21 graduates of the Leeds Beckett University Bachelor of Laws programme delivered through Gaborone Universal College of Law and Professional Studies (GUC), who were refused registration for the June 2026 Bar Examinations. The application challenging the LSB’s refusal was dismissed by Justice Godfrey Nthomiwa on Tuesday. The LSB says its powers to scrutinise a law qualification before allowing its holder through the gates of the profession come directly from the Legal Practitioners Act and the Regulations made under it. However, the graduates argued that the Society went beyond what Parliament authorised, effectively creating an additional hurdle that does not appear in the Act. They further said LSB’s response was unreasonable, irrational and unjustified and therefore had to be reviewed and set aside. That clash has now placed the legislation under the judicial microscope because the applicants’ case is built around section 4(1)(b)(ii) of the Legal Practitioners Act, read together with regulation 2(a) of the Legal Practitioners (Examinations and Qualifications for Admission) Regulations. The provision requires an applicant to have obtained, by examination conducted by the issuing university, a law degree from a university prescribed under the law.

The LSB relied on precisely that provision when it rejected the graduates’ applications. “Upon consideration of the documentation submitted, including your degree certificate and academic transcript, it has not been demonstrated to our satisfaction that you obtained, by examination conducted by the issuing university, a degree in law from a university listed in the Second Schedule to the Legal Practitioners Act (‘the Act’) or in the Schedule to the Legal Practitioners (Examinations and Qualifications for Admission) Regulations (‘the Regulations’), as required in terms of Section 4 (1) (b) (ii) of the Act, read together with regulation 2 (a) of the Regulations,” the Society told the applicants in its May 29, 2026 decision. That decision effectively stopped the graduates before they could even get into the examination room. The LSB’s defence is that its responsibilities under the Act go considerably further than checking certificates and registering candidates. The Society argued that it is the statutory regulator of Botswana’s legal profession and has a responsibility to ensure that people entering the profession satisfy the requirements established by law. Its position was that accepting the graduates’ interpretation of its mandate would reduce the Society to “a registry office devoid of any evaluative function.” The Society relied on its statutory responsibility to maintain standards in the profession. The judgment records that section 59 of the Act gives the Society functions that include: “promoting legal education for the legal profession and upholding standards of professional conduct.” The LSB therefore presented its decision as an exercise of its regulatory responsibility rather than an attempt to arbitrarily keep graduates out of the profession.

The applicants however argued that the Society has statutory powers, but those powers must remain within the boundaries Parliament set. Their argument was that the LSB cannot use its regulatory mandate to create new eligibility requirements that are not contained in the Legal Practitioners Act or the Regulations. “The Respondent does not exercise an unfettered discretion in relation to applications to sit for the Bar Examinations. It exercises a statutory and regulatory power. That power must be exercised lawfully, rationally, fairly, consistently and for the purpose for which it was conferred,” the applicants pointed out. The graduates' position was that the Society had effectively treated their degrees as though they were not Leeds Beckett qualifications simply because their studies were delivered in Botswana through GUC. The graduates argued that this ignored the distinction between the university awarding the degree and the local institution providing teaching and academic support.

“The Respondent’s apparent treatment of the qualification as if it were not a qualification of Leeds Beckett University is therefore factually and legally incorrect,” the graduates added. Adding fuel to the dispute is an earlier LSB position concerning Leeds Beckett University. The applicants point to a letter dated August 13, 2019, in which the Society allegedly confirmed that Leeds Beckett graduates were eligible to practise law in Botswana under the Second Schedule to the Legal Practitioners Act. The graduates argue that they proceeded with their studies on the understanding that the qualification would allow them to enter Botswana’s legal profession, subject to the required local examinations. They further maintain that the LSB was not a stranger to the programme. According to the court papers, there had been sustained engagement amongst GUC, Leeds Beckett and the Society, including correspondence dating back to 2022 and 2023. The applicants therefore argue that it was unfair for the LSB to wait until they had completed their degrees before questioning whether the qualification met the statutory requirements. The legal war also exposes a potentially important division between education regulation and professional regulation.

The graduates rely on the Botswana Qualifications Authority’s (BQA) accreditation and Leeds Beckett’s recognition as the awarding university. The LSB, however, argues that BQA accreditation does not automatically settle the separate question of eligibility for entry into the legal profession. The Society’s argument, as recorded in the case, is that BQA is concerned with accreditation and quality assurance within the tertiary education sector. The LSB, by contrast indicated that it is concerned with determining whether applicants have satisfied the statutory requirements governing entry into the legal profession. The Society’s position is that the existence of BQA’s regulatory mandate does not wipe out the LSB’s own statutory responsibilities. “The performance of one statutory function does not extinguish the other,” LSB noted.