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Bar urged to arrest falling standards in Law–Chief Justice
Accra, Feb. 15, Ghanadot/GNA- Chief
Justice, Mrs. Georgina Theodora Wood on Friday expressed
worry about the fall in standards at the Bar and urged
members to commit themselves to any remedial steps that
would be taken to arrest the situation.
She said, "There is no doubt that any fall in standards at
the bar affects not only the performance of the bench but
the whole system of administration of justice.
"A strong Bar invariably implies a strong Bench and vice
versa and an effective and efficient system of
administration of justice".
Justice Mrs. Wood said this when she addressed the first in
a series of seminars organized by the Ghana School of Law
for the 2007/2008 academic year.
She therefore, urged all lawyers and judges, especially
Judges of the appellate courts, who worked close to the
school to find time to participate in the seminars and to be
ready and willing to present papers whenever they were
requested by the school to do so.
"I also encourage the authorities of the school to provide
more opportunities for a closer interaction between the
students and Lawyers and Judges," Mrs Wood said.
She urged the students of the school to be aware that under
the legal profession, the General Legal Council was
responsible for the organization of legal education and the
upholding of professional conduct of lawyers admitted
to practice in Ghana as barristers or solicitors or both.
"The products of this school are the fountain source from
which the Bar and Bench are filled. It is therefore
important that the training offered in this school produces
lawyers whose performance at the bar would be par
excellence," she said.
Mrs. Wood appealed to the students of the law to prepare in
advance for their seminars and classes, not by their mere
presence at the seminars, but in conducting the necessary
research and applying of logical analysis to the resolution
of legal matters raised by the seminar questions and topics.
"By so doing you would develop the habit of exhibiting
excellence in the preparation and presentation of the cases
of your would be clients," She said.
Quoting from one of Justice Sophia Akuffo's concerns
relating to pleadings, Justice Wood said, " Many of these
amounted more to legal submissions than pleadings. It is not
by lengthy words and paragraphs that a bad case can be
transmuted into a good one. The only end served by such
protracted pleadings is to waste the courts' time and, at
times, confuse the issues; it amounts to an abuse of the
process of the Courts".
GNA
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