High Court freezes law school admissions over disputed entry rules

A legal challenge has stopped KSL and the Council of Legal Education from processing ATP applications pending a hearing on 13 October

By James Mwangi

The High Court yesterday temporarily barred the Kenya School of Law and the Council of Legal Education from implementing disputed admission criteria for the 2027/2028 Advocates Training Programme, halting what petitioners describe as an unlawful attempt to change statutory entry requirements through an administrative advertisement.

Justice J.N. Onyiego certified the petition as urgent and issued conservatory orders restraining KSL and CLE from processing applications, admitting or enrolling candidates under the contested requirements until an inter partes hearing on 13 October. Both institutions have been directed to preserve the status quo that existed before the disputed criteria were published. Respondents have seven days to file responses after being served, while applicants have two days to lodge a rejoinder if necessary.

At the centre of the dispute is an advertisement issued by KSL for the 2027/2028 ATP intake. The petitioners argue it introduced new eligibility pathways with no basis in any operative Act of Parliament or valid subsidiary legislation — specifically, provisions allowing LL.B graduates with lower secondary school grades to qualify through specified additional qualifications or by passing a Pre-Bar Examination. The applicants contend that KSL cannot use an annual administrative notice to create, amend or expand statutory admission requirements. Any substantive change, they argue, must go through the constitutional and statutory procedures governing legislation. An advertisement, however widely circulated, is not a law.

The case also exposes a fault line in Kenya’s ongoing legal education reforms. CLE has prepared two sets of draft regulations as part of broader sector modernisation — the Legal Education (Licensing and Quality Assurance) Regulations, 2026 and the Legal Education (Advocates Training Programme) Regulations, 2026. The petitioners do not dispute the need for reform. What they dispute is whether draft regulations that have not completed public participation, parliamentary consideration, approval and gazettement can serve as a legal basis for introducing new requirements today. A draft, they argue, is not the law.

Public participation has emerged as equally contested ground. The applicants argue that consultations CLE conducted on its draft regulations do not constitute public participation on KSL’s separate administrative decision to publish the specific ATP criteria. Prospective students, universities, legal education providers, professional bodies and practising advocates, they say, were not given a meaningful opportunity to comment on those criteria before they were imposed.

The petition invokes a substantial range of constitutional and administrative law grounds, alleging violations of Articles 10, 27, 43 and 47 of the Constitution alongside breaches of the Fair Administrative Action Act and the Statutory Instruments Act. The applicants further characterise the disputed criteria as an ultra vires exercise of power amounting to procedural impropriety, irrationality and abuse of statutory authority, and have cited violation of legitimate expectations.

The implications extend well beyond the individual petitioners. Admission to the ATP is the gateway to the Roll of Advocates — the point at which a law graduate becomes a practising lawyer. Who may enter that gateway, and on what terms, is a question in which the entire profession has a stake. The petitioners warn that allowing enrolment to proceed under criteria later found unlawful could produce consequences that are difficult to reverse, an argument the court acknowledged in certifying the matter urgent.

When the court sits on 13 October, the answer will carry consequences not only for students caught in the immediate uncertainty but for the broader question of whether the institutions that shape Kenya’s legal profession are themselves bound by the rules they exist to uphold.

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