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.
