ACCRA – A member of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Legal Directorate, Ishaq Ibrahim, says lawyers who are dissatisfied with the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) should seek to reform it rather than set up rival groups.
During his submission on Metro TV’s Inside Pages on Saturday, September 27, Ishaq Ibrahim admitted that he has some concerns about the GBA’s work but does not support calls to “dismantle” it.
“There are some areas I’m not satisfied, but that is not to say, because of that, let’s dismantle it or whatever. In everybody, there’s always room for improvement,” he said.
His comments come in the wake of renewed conversations about the Ghana Law Society, a group formed in 2022 as an alternative professional association for lawyers.
Ishaq Ibrahim argued that the GBA appears to operate like a quasi-constitutional body, making membership almost mandatory.
“The way it is explicitly named, it looks like a quasi-constitutional body. In that sense, it requires that all lawyers in the country belong to that body,” he explained, adding that the link between practising licence renewals and GBA membership reinforces that perception.
He, however, questioned whether the creation of a rival group would solve the concerns raised by some lawyers about the GBA allegedly being politically biased.
“They perceive the Ghana Bar Association to be an NPP-controlled body… If the lawyers in the country are sharply divided, as this is an NDC association and this is an NPP association, are you improving the system or you are dismantling the system?” he asked.
Ishaq Ibrahim maintained that a divided legal profession could “undermine our democracy” and suggested that reform should come from within.
“If I were them, if you have this concern, why don’t you run for the leadership of the Ghana Bar Association and reform it? That is what you do. You don’t run away. You stay to fight and change the system for the better,” he said.
Source: metrotvonline.com
