More lawyers needed to consolidate democracy — Speaker

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has advocated the training of more legal professionals to shape and consolidate the country’s constitutional democracy.

He said as a fledgling democracy, many lawyers were needed at various state agencies to assist in the creation of what he described as democratic culture. That, he said, would assist in fostering healthy “reasoning and controlling of your emotions, passions and civility, and of going by what we have all decided to be governed by”.

“There is an urgent need for us to produce more lawyers since we all decided and we are all committed that democracy succeeds in this country. That is the best form of government that has been developed by humanity,” he said.

Speaking in a meeting with a delegation from the Ghana School of Law in his office in Parliament yesterday, Mr Bagbin said “democracy is not a straight-jacket system as every society and country is permitted to adopt and adapt to suit your situation, culture, environment and traditions, and that is the cause we have committed ourselves to.

“Those who have learned more in that area mostly involve the legal profession, and so we need to produce many more to go to many of the state agencies,” he stated. The delegation, led by the Director of Legal Education, Barima Yaw Kodie Oppong, who is also the Director of the Ghana School of Law, called on the Speaker to express their appreciation for aiding the school to acquire a new public address system worth GH¢100,000.

The items are meant to enhance both academic and non-academic events in the school, saving the school the cost of hiring such a system for events.

Let’s build school

Describing the Ghana School of Law as the “first among equals” in Africa, the Speaker said the school had played an immense role as one of the foundation stones for the struggle of independence on the African continent.

He said he felt “sad and my spirit went low” when he visited the school to deliver a paper on “Ethic in the Legal Practice” recently. During the lecture, Mr Bagbin said, he realised that there had been no change since he left the school in 1982.

“With all these rich lawyers in very high positions, how could our school be that low,” he said. He also cited the number of independent African countries which had come for lawyers from Ghana to start legal education in their countries.

“We sent lawyers to Cameroun and The Gambia where the infrastructure in the Law School is far better than in Ghana; is it not a shame?” he said. With the structures at the Law School built by Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, to train only 96 Law students, Mr Bagbin said that “it is time to build a fitting and proper school for lawyers in Ghana much like other professions”.

“The structures in the school were built in 1958, and meant to train only 96 (lawyers), but it is now training over 3,000. We need to invest in our parent school based on gratitude, the toil and sacrifices of what they have done,” he said.

Assurance

Mr Bagbin gave the assurance that he would speak with parliamentarians to see how best they could support the General Legal Council and the Ghana School of Law to expand its infrastructure.

“We will ensure that we make available in the formula of the Common Fund some space for resources to support the construction of new infrastructure in the school. “This is the way to go, and we have done that for the Judiciary, and we will be able, through the formula, to construct a lot of facilities in the Ghana School of Law,” he said. 

Appreciation

Mr Oppong expressed appreciation to the Speaker for aiding the school with the public address system as well as supporting their installations. “We are excited about this gesture because it cost us GH¢10,000 each time we went for a public address system for a programme.

“This is the school that enabled us to become lawyers, but I do not think that there is the need to put pressure on old students, but they can emulate what the Speaker has done voluntarily,” he said.