A: Introduction

“Great minds discuss ideas; … small minds discuss people.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

There appears to be an inverse relationship between the rising costs of living and the number of hours available to the Ghanaian as a specie of the human race. Whereas the cedi/dollar rate has escalated from $1 = ₵4 to $1 = ₵16 in the space of 7.5 years, the 24 hours-per-day scientific expectation seems to have dwindled to 20 hours, showing a loss of four solid hours. For a writer, throw in an unusually persistent ‘writer’s block,’ an upcoming project launch and a downtime to bring hideous hubris to justice and the lost 4-hours-a-day no longer tastes imaginary on the mind’s tongue.

Irrespective of the nature of the cost of living matrix one is experiencing as a Ghanaian, the aspect of our lives that has demonstrated remarkable resilience is our political time-table. Yes, a tuber of yam sells for ₵60, a crate of eggs sells for ‘ditto,’ and Adventists  have threatened brimstone and boycott. But we will go to the polls on 7^th December, 2024 to elect a President and Members of Parliament. It is in the same breadth that Ghana Bar Association (GBA) will be holding elections to elect national executive officers on 11^th September, 2024. Not surprisingly, both national and GBA Presidential aspirants are crisscrossing the nation, propagating their messages of hope and ‘paradise gained’ come 2025 and beyond.

This article touches on the form and nature of campaigns conducted to win power – be it political power or power in the legal realm. The writer contends that it is no longer enough for the electorate – whoever they may be, depending on the nature of the elections – so sit on their hands and watch the electoral aspirants do as they deem fit. The writer proposes that it is the electorate that ought to, and must, set the agenda for the aspirants hoping to run the institution or the country, as the case may be.

In that regard, the way in which lawyers take a keen and active interest in the GBA’s impending 11^th September elections – by setting the agenda for those who are aspiring to lead the Bar - may serve as a worthy example for citizens in the national Presidential and Parliamentary elections to be held later this year.  The article concludes that the ‘politics as usual’ as appears to have taken root can no longer serve our turn as an association, and as a nation. We must take active part in fashioning out the future we want - and I dare say, deserve - by investing our time and energy in the choice of our leaders.  

B: The campaign fever is on

At both the national and GBA levels, the campaign season has arrived with a bang. To be fair, the national elections campaign started way back (circa 2021) as soon as the President was sworn in on the 7^th of January. The Vice-President knew the next four years were for campaign season and he has been at it since then. The immediate past President and opposition leader also seems to harbour the thought that – per his 2021 election petition and the loss thereof – the electorate will temper voting with mercy as they did for Nana Addo-D, His Excellency, in 2016. So, Mr. Mahama has also been at it since January, 2021, campaigning for his second coming.

As we are all aware, in our body politic, campaigning without dishing out lofty promises is like performing the akapoma dance and omitting the dwamu (intricate leg display) aspects of it. So, Alhaji says when he becomes President of Ghana, every citizen will enjoy a mobile phone on credit and make a monthly ₵2 payment by instalment towards full costs recovery. It is unknown if he is aware that mobile phone usage in the country is already over 140%.[1] Presumably, free data will be supplied to citizens quarterly after the nation is zoned into ‘gold,’ ‘green’ ‘blue’ and ‘pink.’  

Not to be outdone in the campaign contest, Papa John also says the nation will be on full throttle 24-hours a day, among other promises. The first time I saw a company advertise that it operated 24 hours, I had so much respect for it. For a city like Accra that sleeps by 10 p.m., I found the business module a brave peradventure. I saw two branded branches of the company at Teshie and Kotobabi Junction (Spintex Road). The Teshie premises is now inhabited by weeds. The Kotobabi Junction shop currently spots a fashion boutique. Who knows, since the announced 24-hour economy may be Government of Ghana-driven, it is the ministries, departments and agencies that will lead the charge. Just imagine the singular pleasure of being able to visit a Government Ministry at 1 a.m. to transact business. Let us all remain incorrigibly optimistic.

At our beloved GBA’s level, the campaign clutch is in fifth gear. Well-appointed flyers are in circulation. Hitherto ensconced types are out and about, wearing broad grins and catching the electorates’ eyes, literally speaking. Achievements in, at, of, around and about the Bar have been meticulously listed for our consumption. Like all electioneering campaign materials, the import of some of the messages are profound:

I have served the Bar since John Mensa Sarbah days.

I have provided the most variety of intoxicants at Bar events since 1876.

As a Christ-loving lawyer, I bathed in River Jordan last year.

I perform baby-sitting duties for nursing female lawyers during conferences.

I will sponsor one thousand lawyer-pilgrims to The Hajj next year, insha Allah!

I am pro-establishment.

I am anti-establishment.  

Female lawyers love me.

He/she/his/hers/they/them lawyers are on my side.

Etc., etc., etc.

The campaign messages flying around are most innovative. But none so far beats the one that greeted us in the early 2000s where an aspirant declared, among other achievements, that he was the one introduced the wearing of trousers for female lawyers at the Bar! How could one not vote for such a progressive contestant? Any way.

C: Why GBA members must set the agenda for the elected officers

Truth be told, all the high-sounding attributes doing the rounds on well-appointed and colourful fliers are worthy of securing slots for contestants on the prized GBA national executive body. But the real question agitating many an observer’s mind is this: Whether the ordinary GBA member – in this context, consider the lawyer walking on the pavement along the High Street between the Supreme Court Building and the erstwhile Cocoa Affairs Courts premises – is content to elect an executive into office based solely on the latter’s campaign sound bites and allegories.

The answer to this question could best be gleaned from the matters that have been harped on by GBA members for years. Therefore, those hackneyed matters ought to, and must be, the thunderbolt for the electioneering campaign for all vacant executive positions up for contest. After all, it is not only Presidents who act for and on behalf of the GBA. In that wise, it is proposed that there must be a GBA Manifesto – so to speak – setting out the agenda for those who are willing and able to deliver on the contents as stated. That way, at the annual National Conference for each year of the 3-year period that the elected executive will be in office, members will seek to know how far (or, how less) the Manifesto is being implemented.

Members will ask pertinent questions at Conference and if the national executive’s performance is adjudged to be sub-par, members will be free to trigger impeachment processes. In the result, executive members may be assured of serving their full 3-year term only when they are able to pass, as it were, the annual appraisal conducted at the National Conference. Consequently, as an association of learned professionals, it would be most prudent for us to put together a clear and concise manifesto by which the performance of our national executive members will be measured.

D: The Manifesto: Bottom-top approach

The document that will serve as the association’s manifesto must contain the genuine aspirations of the generality of members. It must not be a compendium of high-sounding ideals that would not lend themselves to effecting any practical change in the association’s fortunes. In this section, I suggest some pertinent areas that must find pride of place in the proposed manifesto. The list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, it does not enjoy any trappings of inviolability. It only serves as a platform on which any such manifesto might be build. The suggested areas to be covered are discussed in detail below.

i)             Review of the GBA Constitution

The association’s Constitution shares one major feature with Sir Alan Burns’ pre-independence Constitution of 1946: it was outmoded at birth. For the proponents of the amendment in the Bar’s Constitution a few years ago, it appears their major interests were, first, to secure an election-free, 3-year tenure for executive members. Secondly, the amendment was to ensure that the Bar Council, populated by near-centenarians and nanogeranians on ‘life peerage’ assignment as former Presidents of the association, remained in situ. Since the Constitution’s amendment appear cosmetic, nothing has changed in the Bar’s fortunes and its members continue to groan with dissatisfaction.

Thus said, the Manifesto must call for a constitutional amendment to rid the Bar Council of the ‘life peers,’ otherwise known as the past Presidents. At every point in time, only the immediate past President (IPP) must be an automatic member of the Bar Council. As soon as a new IPP emerges, the old must give way to the new. Once the ‘life peers’ are bade goodbye, the Manifesto could create new categories of persons that may be added to ensure that the Council reflects the demography of the Bar.

Some may even argue that with potentially not less than 32 members of the national executive committee, the Bar Council must be abolished and its current role, if any, given to the national executive committee. Food for the Bar’s thought.

ii)            Implementation of the GBA Constitution

The Manifesto must provide that, after the necessary amendment have been made to the Constitution, the national executive committee must see to its implementation. The provisions on discipline of members, continuing legal education, legal education/Law School issues must be enforced to the letter.[2]

iii)           Respect for GBA laws on elections

Is it not fascinating that a President elected under the GBA Constitution can only occupy the office for a single, 3-year term but other executive members who also enjoy the 3 years in office can seek re-election into the same position they occupied during the tenure of the outgone President? So, for instance, A, B, C and D were elected President, Vice-President, Secretary and PRO respectively in September, 2020. They were in office for 3 years till the next elections in September, 2023. Since the Constitution makes provision for a single term of 3 years, the President did not stand for re-election. The Vice-President did not contest for the Presidency. He left the scene. But the Secretary and PRO decided to contest once again to occupy their respective seats for another 3-year term.

In effect, the Constitution works to limit the Presidential term whiles leaving the other positions to be contested in perpetuity by incumbents. Could this have been the intendment of the GBA when it made changes in the Constitution to introduce the one 3-year term for executive members? It is doubtful that was the intention. If that were not so, then the GBA Constitution could count as one of the most discriminatory and obnoxious documents ever to be made for governance. The world’s worst dictator will blush just by thinking of passing such a law.    

It may very well be – and one is inclined to believe so – that the constitutional intention is to limit all executive office holders to one 3-year term only in office. Once the President leaves the scene, fresh elections are to be held and the other executive members – as well as any qualified members of the GBA - are free to contest for any position. However, a sitting executive member can only put himself or herself up for election into any other office of their choice other than the one they previously occupied immediately before the elections. That way, the GBA will save itself from nurturing dynasties and fiefdoms within its national executive body. Moreover, it will curtail the ambition of those seeking to create permanent employment out of their brief stint on the GBA national executive committee.

At any rate, the GBA Constitution provides as follows:

“National Officers elected at the Annual General Conference of the Association shall hold office for a period of three years beginning from the date on which they are sworn in as National Officers.”[3]

Where the Constitution intended that officers of the various fora could stand for re-election after serving the 3-year term, it explicitly stated so. For instance, it is provided as follows:

“An officer of a Forum of the Association shall hold office for a term of three years but may be eligible for re-election for further terms.”[4]

Thus, the Manifesto will demand that any national executive member who seeks to turn the GBA Constitution on its head by contesting to be elected into the same position they held for 3 years immediately before the elections – thereby perpetuating themselves in power, either for their self-interest or those of their puppet masters – must step down forthwith to avoid any embarrassment.  

iv)           Audited Bar dues and solicitor’s license fees accounts

The Manifesto will require that the GBA executive committee submit audited accounts of all monies collected as Solicitor’s license fees for and on behalf of the General Legal Council (GLC) from 2012 to date. In that respect, the GBA must comply fully with the directives given in the Auditor-General’s report.[5]

v)            Election of GBA representatives on constitutional and statutory bodies

The GBA is arguably the most recognized professional body under the 1992 Constitution and other statutes. Many constitutional and statutory bodies are by law mandated to have a representative or representatives from the GBA. Such bodies include the Lands Commission, National Media Commission, General Legal Council, Rules of Court Committee, Prisons Council and several others. Over the course of time, GBA members have duly served on such bodies. But to know which member serves on what body at any point in time, one needs to consult the terse “reports” from such bodies embedded in the Annual Conference booklets.

At any rate, a glance through the so-called reports from the constitutional bodies will reveal that all, if not most, of the GBA representatives that sit on such bodies are current or former Bar executive members.  It is unclear by what criteria some members find themselves on such bodies. For instance, the law that regulates the legal profession[6] states clearly that the persons who constitute the governing body of the General Legal Council (GLC) must include “four members of the Bar elected by the Ghana Bar Association.” As a member of the GBA since 1998, I have never witnessed any elections held at an Annual Conference to “elect” members to sit in the GLC. Yet, GBA members always populate the GLC and its Disciplinary Committee.

It is submitted that the opaque manner in which members of the Association have slithered unto such bodies must end. By the GBA Manifesto, the national executive body of the GBA must ensure that the association holds elections to choose, from among the general membership, its representatives on the GLC and all other constitutional and statutory bodies. Once members offer themselves and they are elected, they will be held accountable for their stewardship on those bodies. Thus, they will take their duties on such bodies seriously and submit proper reports at Annual Conference for members’ debate.

vi)          Annual Bench/Bar interactions

Another key element in the GBA Manifesto will be the requirement for each Regional Bar to organize - at least, once every year – an informal interactive session for the lawyers and judges in the region. Please, there must be no prepared and high-sounding speeches. Just a relaxed and congenial atmosphere for exchange of pleasantries and ‘small talk,’ accompanied by hors d’oeuvre. No wigs and gowns. No noses in the air. No big English. No Police escorts. Leave the RRs at home; you know what I mean. Just present one’s self smartly-dressed in casual and wear a smile.

Such interactions will help thaw some of the misconceptions the Bar and the Bench harbour about each other. Each entity perceives the other as having some members who are rude, uptight, all-knowing, lacking in knowledge, pompous, overbearing, unapproachable, and the list goes on. In my own experience, I have heard complaints about some members on each side of the legal divide. Surprisingly, in most instances, I would have had a totally different – nay, warm and pleasant - encounters with the so-called offensive fellows. That is why it will be good for us to interact more across the divide to dispel some of the misapprehension we may have towards each other.

vii)         Continuous GBA/Judiciary engagement

As the Bar and the Bench must find the time and space to occasionally interact socially, so must the GBA and the Judiciary continuously engage each other. This will promote exchange of ideas on policies that affect the practice of law and the administration of justice. In recent times, it has become easier for one to predict the rainfall pattern in the country than to keep a tab on changes in the rules, policies and directives in the judicial system. In recent times, one sees “circulars,” “notices,” “administrative guidelines,” and other such writings coming from various sources introducing one directive or the other. Some come by way of “practice directions” that point to no decided case of the Supreme Court wherein any such directions have been issued to guide the practice of law.[7] 

These circulars, directions and guidelines – howsoever described – are intended to be an integral part of the adjudication system. But they appear to be products of the Judiciary/Judicial Service, with no import from the GBA. Such documents are issued and posted indiscriminately on social media without any prior knowledge and discussions at the conception stage. The worst part is that some of the circulars and directives offend against the constitutional duty imposed on the Rules of Court Committee. Others also upset existing rules or settled practices of the courts.

Though some of these directions and guidelines boast of a sprinkling of lawyers’ names, one can hardly hazard a guess as to whether those bearing the said names were in the midst of the judicial officers on their own accord or, they were representing the GBA.

A GBA Manifesto must clearly set out the mode of engaging and collaborating with the Judiciary. Members who represent the GBA in any such engagement must be known and be accountable to the GBA. Thus, such representatives must be able to explain how and why such directives and guidelines came about.

viii)        Continuing legal education

I have stated elsewhere[8] that over the years, the GBA has been responsible for organizing continuing legal education (CLE) programmes for lawyers. This is stated in the GBA’s Constitution. To that end, the GBA has set up a CLE Institute that has been responsible for organizing continuing legal education programmes.^[9] Being emboldened in its continuous illegal co-existence with the GBA over the years – largely due to a timid and yielding Bar and its national executive council – the GLC recently made a move to arrogate the holding of continuing legal education programmes for lawyers to itself through the ill-conceived Professional Etiquette & Conduct Rules passed in 2020.^[10]

Thankfully, the huge backlash that greeted that move scuttled it and those who made the move had to publicly disown it, much to their eternal embarrassment. Be that as it may, the GBA’s CLE Institute could use a purely ‘by lawyers for lawyers’ approach and also freshen up its list of recycled panelists. In spite of the huge numbers of experienced lawyers at the Bar, it is becoming fashionable of late for the Bar’s CLE programmes to be handled by judges. The last time I checked, lawyers were not training judges at the Judicial Training Institute. We must cut back on the inferiority posturing.

E: Conclusion

National elections fever is in the air and political parties are launching their campaigns.

As the GBA gets ready for its Annual Conference and election of its national officers in a few weeks’ time, we wish all the contestants nothing good luck. After the wishes come the real expectations we hold of whoever will win and get into office. There is an array of contestants and surely, there will be no dull moment at the contest. But when all is said and done, we the members of the GBA expect that our Manifesto will be implemented to the letter. Failing that, impeachment processes may be tested.

Let us take action now. Once we can hold ourselves accountable as an association through our home-made Manifesto, we can lead our citizens to fashion out a similar document to hold politicians accountable, too. Volunteers for drafting the Manifesto are welcome.

In the meantime, I wish all contestants in the GBA elections the very best of luck.