The Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame has called for a massive recruitment of state attorneys to enhance the effective functioning of the office of the Attorney General.
According to him, the present number of 300 is woefully inadequate and thus accounts for the inordinate delays in the delivery of its functions.
Addressing lawyers at the 2024 Annual Bar Conference at the Great Hall of the KNUST in Kumasi, Mr Dame stated that in 2021/2022, the capacity of the Office was augmented with; the recruitment of about 60 attorneys.
He added that processes are underway to employ 70 more fresh attorneys, with interviews scheduled for the latter part of September. This will bring the number recruited in the last three years to 130.
The AG, therefore, bemoaned the system in which ministries, departments, agencies, or metropolitan and other assemblies employ their own lawyers, which he said does not augur well for the proper harmony and synchronization of government legal work.
Additionally, in his quest to enhance the capacity of all lawyers in public service, Mr. Dame also announced that he has scheduled a conference that will be a platform for knowledge sharing and refresher engagement to build their capacities in the areas of negotiation, structuring, drafting, and more.
Ghana Arbitration Centre
The Attorney General mentioned that the establishment of the Ghana Arbitration Centre presents a viable opportunity for multimillion-dollar commercial disputes and cases to be resolved in Ghana, which will, in turn, enable members of the Bar to sharpen their skills in resolving such disputes.
Contracts (Amendment) Act, 2023
Also, Mr. Dame touched on this piece of legislation by which public officers are prohibited from entering into a contract on behalf of the State in which the rate of interest is stipulated as compound interest.
He was optimistic that by its passage, it is expected that contracts with high rates of interest especially compound interest which result in huge judgment debt and financial loss to the State, like what occurred in the NDK Financial Services Limited v. The Attorney-General & 2 Others case a few years ago, will be avoided.
Legal Profession Bill
“The Office of the Attorney General is also in the process of preparing a new Legal Profession Bill as part of measures to comprehensively, and in a more sustainable way, address among other things, issues relating to access to legal education, rules on call to the Bar and regulation of professional conduct,” he noted.
He thus observed happily that in the last four years, over 3,000 persons have been called to the Bar since 2021 consisting of over one thousand (1000) in 2022 and 1,286 last year.
Free and fair elections
Moreover, the Attorney General reminded lawyers of their pressing role in the promotion of a free and fair election which is ensuring the proper education of the entire citizenry on regulations affecting the conduct of the elections, the duties of the citizen, and of course, dispelling misconceptions about the actions of the Electoral Commission, rather than being agents for the propagation of falsehood.
Need for a strong Bar
Mr Dame also emphasized the need for a strong bar as a partner for nation-building. He thus called for the need to make the processes for the physical participation of all lawyers in the annual conference flexible and the resolution of all challenges hindering this.
