By S. Siapha Mulbah
The Dean of the Louise Arthur Grimes School of Law at the University of Liberia Counsellor Jallah A. Barbu has termed as inappropriate the resignation of the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Frances Johnson Allison and Assistant Professor Lucia Sonii Gbala from the law school.
The duo resigned one day after the other from the institution reporting that there were changes in the grades submitted by them before the university 103rd graduating exercise; a situation that could lead to undermining the academic excellence at the nation’s highest learning facility.
Former Chief Justice Allison, who thought Children Law at the institution, accused the school of developing interest in graduating student to the disrespecting the code of providing quality and professional educational to those in its enrollment.
Assistant Professor Lucia Sonii Gbala also reported that that several students were graduated by the law school despite failing in the’ Applied Legal Studies Course II’ a required course which she taught.
In response to the alarming resignations, Cllr. Babu told a radio interaction that both Cllrs. Frances Johnson Allison and Lucia Sonii Gbala were part time employees who were not in permanent contract or employment with the institution to have sent in resignation at a time that the school had not assigned courses to them for the semesters.
The legal luminary asserted that the two lecturers in question also had some technical errors during the submission of their grades before the university 103rd graduation exercise which created problems for some students.
The affected students proceeded to the administration with the concerns leading to an investigation and subsequently the students were clear for graduation after there were no tangible reason shown to have those repeating those courses.
“There is a problem if folks in the legal profession like those lecturers will come to the public with those misinformation clauses. They both have understand that the law school is a professional institution and has all rudiments in its administration. They were not employed so their resignations have no relevance,” he said.
He continued; “They two submitted grades that did not meet the standard of the school, when contacted to acquire the cause of the chaotic submission through an investigation the two of them could not still clarify the incident. That’s how the faculty did the clearance of the students in the graduation guidelines.”
According to him, the University faculty discovered several questionable factors in the grades submitted by the two lecturers and decided to engage them but they refused to corporate or justify the inconsistency of the students grades according to the faculty status.
“The faculty of the law school did not change grades because they wanted to go against and of the lecturers. The students were marginalized and the lecturers could not defend why the grades were not submitted in the appropriate manner. The matter was investigated and the decision was based on evidence that the graduates were merited.
