The Adentan High Court in Accra has delivered a significant judgment in favour of holders of doctoral degrees from the Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica (UNEM), quashing a directive issued by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) which sought to invalidate the use of UNEM qualifications within Ghana’s tertiary education sector.
The impugned directive, issued by GTEC on November 5, 2025 and addressed to all public tertiary institutions in Ghana, directed that UNEM qualifications should not be recognised for teaching, appointment, promotion, or related academic purposes. The directive sparked widespread concern among affected academics and professionals nationwide.
The decision, delivered by His Lordship Justice Kwame Gyamfi at the Adentan High Court on May 28, 2026, represents one of the most important recent judicial pronouncements on administrative fairness, higher education regulation, and the protection of vested rights in Ghana.
The case was brought by a group composed largely of University Academics and professionals, whose academic qualifications and professional advancement had been adversely affected by GTEC’s directive on UNEM degrees. The applicants challenged the legality of the directive and the processes leading to its issuance.
The applicants, through their counsel, Solomon Faakye, Esq., submitted that GTEC acted unlawfully by retrospectively invalidating qualifications which had already been recognised and relied upon by degree holders for appointments, promotions, teaching, and other academic purposes. They further submitted that the Commission failed to comply with the mandatory legal procedures governing the suspension or revocation of accreditation and recognition under the applicable regulatory framework.
It was also their case that GTEC’s actions violated the principles of natural justice, legitimate expectation, fairness, and administrative legality. Counsel maintained that public institutions and universities could not lawfully take punitive or adverse decisions against holders of the affected qualifications on the basis of an unlawful directive.
In upholding the applicants’ submissions, the Court held that statutory bodies such as GTEC are bound by law and must act strictly within the limits of the powers granted to them. The Court found that the impugned directive and the processes leading to it were legally flawed and incapable of sustaining the adverse consequences imposed on affected degree holders.
Justice Kwame Gyamfi consequently granted a number of reliefs in favour of the applicants, including declarations that the impugned directive was unlawful, invalid, and of no legal effect. The Court expressly held that all qualifications obtained before the issuance of the GTEC directive remained valid and could not lawfully be invalidated retrospectively.
The Court further quashed the directive and restrained GTEC from acting upon or enforcing it against affected persons. In addition, the Court directed all tertiary institutions that had acted on the directive or taken adverse decisions pursuant to it against holders of UNEM qualifications to reverse such actions.
It will be recalled that in recent months, GTEC has intensified a nationwide crackdown on what it describes as fake, unaccredited, or improperly used academic qualifications and honorary titles, including directives against unaccredited institutions, the abuse of honorary doctorates, and the use of questionable foreign qualifications. The UNEM directive formed part of that broader regulatory campaign. The judgment is expected to have far-reaching implications for universities, public institutions, and regulatory bodies within Ghana’s higher education sector, particularly institutions that had implemented or relied on GTEC’s directive in matters relating to appointments, promotions, confirmations, and academic recognition.
