GUC graduates refuse to leave legal profession door closed
Spira Tlhankane | Monday September 14, 2026 08:24
The appeal follows refusal by the graduates to accept defeat after the High Court shut the door on their bid to sit for the bar examinations. Led by Arnold Rapula Somolekae, the group has filed an appeal against Justice Godfrey Nthomiwa’s September 1, 2026 judgment. They argue that the High Court misdirected itself in law and failed to properly determine whether the LSB had acted within its statutory powers. The appeal puts the controversy back before the courts at a time when the dispute has evolved from a fight over 21 examination places into a wider legal battle over who controls entry into Botswana’s legal profession, the limits of the Law Society’s regulatory powers and the status of the Leeds Beckett University-GUC law programme. In their papers, the graduates are asking the CoA to overturn the High Court’s orders and declare the LSB’s May 29 decision unlawful, irrational, unreasonable and procedurally unfair.
They also want the apex court to direct the Society to register them for the postponed June 2026 Bar Examinations. The appeal notice records that the graduates are challenging, amongst other things, the High Court’s finding that a dispute surrounding a Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) statutory audit report could not be resolved on affidavit evidence. They also challenge the dismissal of their review application and the order directing them to pay the costs of the proceedings. At the heart of the appeal is the graduates’ contention that the High Court should have determined whether the LSB had exceeded the powers given to it by the Legal Practitioners Act. In their grounds for appeal, the appellants argue that the court failed to determine several of the substantive grounds on which they attacked the LSB’s decision. It included their allegation that the Society had acted beyond its statutory mandate, imposed requirements not found in the Legal Practitioners Act or applicable Regulations. They further contend that the LSB “acted irrationally and inconsistently in refusing the Appellants’ applications to sit for the Bar Exams”. The graduates said the Society denied them procedural fairness and frustrated their legitimate expectation of equal treatment.
The graduates also argue that the alleged adverse information relied upon against them was never disclosed before the decision was taken and that they were not given an opportunity to explain themselves. “The alleged adverse information was never disclosed to the appellants before the impugned decision was taken; the Appellants were not invited to make representations or provide further information; and no hearing was afforded to the Appellants,” they stated in their appeal papers. The graduates further argue that the LSB relied on alleged regulatory concerns without giving them an opportunity to answer those concerns. Moreover, the BQA audit has emerged as one of the most important fault lines in the case because the High Court found that the dispute concerning the existence and contents of the accreditation body’s statutory audit report could not be resolved through affidavit evidence. In the appeal papers the graduates, however, argue that the audit report was not relevant to the legality of the LSB’s May 29 decision.
They accuse the High Court of allowing the audit issue to become a basis for avoiding determination of the actual review application. “The High Court erred in fact and/or law and misdirected itself by treating the respondent's late request for production of the audit report as demonstrating a dispute material to the review.” The graduates further argued that allowing the audit report to become central to the case could permit the LSB to reconstruct its reasons after the decision had already been made. “Permitting the respondent to make the audit report and its contents an issue relevant to the review would allow the respondent to supplement and/or reconstruct the reasons and/or provide an ex post facto justification for the decision communicated to the appellants on 29 May 2026,” the graduates contended. The appeal papers argue that even after finding a material dispute of fact, the High Court should not simply have dismissed the review application. The graduates contend that the court could have applied the Plascon-Evans rule or the common-law robust approach to resolve the dispute on the papers. Alternatively, they say if oral evidence was necessary the court should have referred the narrowly defined issues to oral evidence or trial rather than dismissing the entire review application.
They accuse the High Court of failing to determine issues that they say could have been resolved on facts common to both sides. Their principal relief is for the Court of Appeal to uphold the appeal, set aside the High Court’s orders and declare the LSB’s May 29 decision unlawful, irrational, unreasonable and procedurally unfair. They want the decision reviewed and set aside and the LSB ordered to “forthwith register the Applicants and permit them to sit the postponed June 2026 Bar Examinations.' Alternatively, they want the matter remitted for urgent determination before another judge, with the factual dispute determined through viva voce evidence.
The appeal comes after Justice Nthomiwa dismissed the graduates’ application. The judge had found that the dispute over the BQA audit and the credibility and suitability of the programme could not properly be determined from affidavit evidence. The judgment left the graduates in legal limbo and the apex court will now have an opportunity to examine whether the High Court was right to stop the case at that point.