Twenty-one Gaborone Universal College of Law and Professional Studies (GUC) graduates, led by Arnold Rapula Somolekae, have refused to accept the High Court’s September 1 dismissal of their challenge against the Law Society of Botswana (LSB). In doing so, they have transformed what was initially a fight over their admission to the June 2026 Bar Examinations into a much bigger legal contest over the limits of regulatory power and procedural fairness. Also, the contest is about the evidential value of a Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) audit and, ultimately, who decides whether a law degree is good enough to open the door for one to do legal practice.
The genesis of the caseThe roots of the controversy can be traced back to 2018 when GUC entered into a franchising arrangement with Leeds Beckett University from the United Kingdom (UK), to deliver the university’s Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree programme in Botswana. At the time, the arrangement appeared to offer students a pathway to obtaining an internationally recognised law qualification while studying locally. According to GUC, the programme was not some clandestine arrangement that suddenly appeared before regulators. The College has maintained that the programme was subjected to regulatory scrutiny during its inception.
