UNIMAK’s Law Clinic provides free legal services
The University of Makeni (UNIMAK) is currently bettering the lives of people not only in the religious and educational aspects, it established Law Clinic with funds from ASJP, supported by the British Department for International Development; has been using its legal capacity of the Law Department to provide pro bono paralegal and legal services to the people of Bombali District. Since January 2014 the Clinic has provided paralegal assistance to more than 900 persons detained in police cells, more than 600 women with cases in the local court and to more than 350 criminal defendants in Bombali, and securing more than 100 acquittals. (Photo: Rev. Father Prof. Joe Turay, UNIMAK’s Vice Chancellor )
Father Benjamin Sesay is the Director of Administration and Finance at UNIMAK. He told this press that the Clinic provides valuable training to students while exposing them to the realities of the administration of justice in Bombali. He said it fulfils the University Law Department’s commitment to saving the country, giving legal assistance to the most marginalized in the community.
The Clinic’s Women Rights Division, he said has conducted nine trainings for women leaders in Bombali, nine radio shows and published nine thousand pamphlets.
“Our Law Department has produced its first crop of lawyers who have gone through the Law School and have been called to the Bar,” says Reverend Father Prof. Joseph Alimamy Turay, Vice Chancellor of UNIMAK. He further revealed that they are grateful to the Government of Sierra Leone for providing the enabling environment in democratizing legal education by amending the Legal Practitioners Act allowing graduates from UNIMAK and any other recognized University to engage in legal practice in Sierra Leone.
“We are working towards diversifying legal training and fill the gap in providing legal education in environmental law, civil law, and mining law and so on,” he said.
However, UNIMAK has signed an agreement with the Imperial College of Ghana to provide training in vocational and technical sciences as a start towards building its engineering component. This came after the University became aware of the need to provide the needed human capital in civil, mechanical, mining and electrical engineering.
It is no more a secret that there is huge deficit in the sciences in the country of which the University of Makeni intend building a scientific culture with it partners by using the various laboratories to strengthen the biological sciences and other pure sciences thus paving the way for science education in the university.
“We are more than determine to continue to contribute to the development of our beloved country and to produce students that will be able to create jobs and compete in the job market for the development and success of our country and the people of Sierra Leone,” father Joe Turay assured.
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