Deal with seeming factionalism within the legal profession- Supreme Court Justice tells GBA

A Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Jones Mawulorm Dotse has tasked the Ghana Bar Association to deal with signs of seeming factionalism emerging within Ghana's legal profession.

Though confident in the GBA to manage the storm, he believes that if not checked, this situation has the potential of destroying the Association.

“All is definitely not well with the Association. This is because we have started to see signs of factionalism in the profession.

Quite recently, I heard a group of lawyers who issued a statement. If this is not checked, it has the potential of destroying the GBA and I believe the GBA is capable of managing the storm.”

Addressing the official opening ceremony of the 2022  Annual Bar Conference at Ho as a representative of the Chief Justice, he also called for strict adherence to the ethics and rules of the legal profession in order to safeguard its reputation.

In order to achieve the above, Justice Dotse advised lawyers to show respect for the rules, and respect their clients, and the profession generally.

Further to the above, the Supreme Court Justice intimated that in their engagement with their clients, lawyers ought to uphold every standard of professionalism and maintain robust book-keeping etiquette in order to avoid disagreements as to the use of clients’ money.

Also, he touched on the need for lawyers to have clients’ accounts and called for those who are yet to open the same to be encouraged and be sanctioned if otherwise.

Additionally, Justice Dotse in calling for reforms in the Rules of Procedure(Civil and Criminal), tasked lawyers to begin to question some of their delay tactics thus calling for more punitive rules and the need for timelines especially at the Case Management level in order to hold lawyers strictly to the same to avoid delay.