AG dismisses reports of presenting new Legal Professions Bill to Parliament
With the current tussle with legal education in Ghana, some Members of Parliament have presented private members bills, seeking to address challenges associated with legal education in Ghana.
The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, says reports that his Office has put before Parliament, a new Legal Professions Bill, are untrue.
“May I take this opportunity to disclose that I have not come out with any new legal professions bill. Point of fact, there has not been any new legal professions bill drafted by the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice this year,” he said.
“No approval has been sought by me from Cabinet, for a legal profession bill to be sent to Parliament and for that matter no legal profession bill has been submitted to Parliament,” he explained.
He was speaking at a conference organised by the University of Ghana School of Law and the German Development Cooperation, on the theme, ‘The Future of Legal Education in Ghana/Africa.’ The event had in attendance also, the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Jones Dotse, First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu, the German Ambassador, Daniel Krull, University of Ghana (UG) Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo and Prof. Raymond Atuguba, the Dean of the UG School of Law.
He also added that no stakeholder consultations have even been performed on the legal professions bill.
He said the document being purported to be the new legal professions bill, is one of the 2019 bills laid before Parliament regarding legal education before he took office in March 2021.
He said when the new Parliament was formed, “the bill lapsed, and same could not be considered or passed by Parliament.”
He added that in providing comments to the 2019 bill, he only attached the same bill to a letter dated September 2, 2021, advising the General Legal Council for broader stakeholder engagement on the bill.
He however noted that he was surprised that certain persons of high standing, joined in with comments about a legal professions bill initiated by his office.
“With unrestrained haste, various persons, high-standing in society, including professors and senior lawyers, rush to the media to make all manner of comments, virtually casting aspersions at the integrity of the Office of the Attorney-General coming up with such a bill. This they did, without spearing even a slipt second, to verify the accuracy of the information. Even though in truth and in facts, I was just a phone call away from most of the commentators who were engaged in the commentary.”
LEGAL PROFESSIONS BILL
With the current tussle with legal education in Ghana, some Members of Parliament have presented private members bills, seeking to address challenges associated with legal education in Ghana.
These are however different from the Legal Professions Bill.
To clear any confusion, the bill being alluded to is the Legal Professions Amendment Bill 2017, which was introduced by the then Attorney-General, Madam Gloria Akuffo and presented to Parliament on February 10, 2018.
It is supposed to amend the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32).
It is to provide for additional requirements for admission into the Ghana School of Law, comprising passing an entrance examination and an interview conducted for that purpose.
It is to also provide for the training of lawyers with reference to pupillage and requirements for a solicitor’s licence and to provide for the discipline of lawyers with respect to professional misconduct.
The bill has however been described as problematic.
At the UPSA legal conference last week, Professor Raymond Atuguba, the Dean of the UG School of Law, was quoted to have said the proposed Legal Professions Bill was drafted without legal education in mind.
