Prof. Justice Date-Bah to speak at 3rd KNUST Faculty of Law Eminent Public Lecture
The lecture aims to discuss the nature of the Ghanaian Legal System and the role it has played and continues to play in development.
Retired Justice of the Supreme Court and international legal academic, Professor Justice Samuel Date-Bah is set to speak at the third KNUST Faculty of Law Eminent Legal Scholars and Lawyers Public Lecture on May 17, 2022.
The event which will happen both at the Great Hall, KNUST, and on zoom would treat the topic, “Reflections on the Role of the Ghanaian Legal System in Development.”
Synopsis of Lecture
The lecture aims to discuss the nature of the Ghanaian Legal System and the role it has played and continues to play in development. It surveys the theoretical context of law and development, before analyzing the roles of private and public law in Ghana’s development.
It highlights the roles played by the legal profession, Parliament, the Executive and the Law Reform Commission in the law’s function in development.
It concludes that the Ghanaian legal system has played and continues to play an important role in this country’s development process.
The legal profession needs to recognize this fact and bear it in mind when members are carrying out their various daily black letter legal responsibilities.
Judges, legal practitioners and law teachers should be conscious of their dual role as social engineers as well as implementers or translators into action of the black letter law. An awareness of their role as change agents will enhance their efficacy in Ghana’s development process.
In effect, the lecture urges Ghanaian lawyers to subscribe to a functional jurisprudence. The rules of the legal system are not to be analysed and applied as if they are a self-contained normative system without a societal purpose.
