Ghana Bar Association: Lawyers not paying taxes, misconduct on social media - Newsfile (18-9-21)

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counter conde school aj navojon says the vision of both eu and echoes died with its founding fathers all they have been doing is try and arrow can you imagine a block that is always fire fighting instead of being proactive when problems are even staring at them in the face they won't act until it escalates prince jay anku says what is allah tara doing in guinea he got no business there how can he be a mediator in a matter that is also he is also guilty of back in his country ecowas got to be serious dr charles raccobrobe says equals protocols and non-interference in internal affairs of member countries are mutually exclusive mutually exclusive that's an interesting note there kofi bento says that experience is pointing to the clear position that national constitutions should be subjected to sub-regional endorsement because constitutions and their amendments create cool and sub regionals stability risks and when these schools happen echoes is called upon to spend resources and even lives to restore normalcy all constitutions must also have perpetual clauses which allow their reinstatement after an overthrow and the rule of echoes must be well scripted so it's clear to all that no one nation can destabilize their region then godwin a darwine uh used to be on this show a lot says echoes is losing its moral authority and political legitimacy long uh okay lot citizens of the sub region that's what they okay so we the cool way for civilian leaders to manipulate it's a way for civilian leaders to manipulate constitutional term limits and when this leads to course then suddenly equals finds its voice most unfortunate all right so thanks for your messages um i'll read this last one from elijah baka kippu ali jabaka he says the only cure for a grief is action the coup wasn't as as such an action but a reaction against corruption hardship and power drunkness and the remaining echoes membership should be celebrating this reminder and big lesson it's a reminder a big blessing uh thanks for your messages now uh let's go to the ghana bar association and ask a few questions and ask a few questions we have had a couple of people make uh some comments about an aspect of the discussion we are going to have so let's listen to them i'm afraid there's no easy way of putting this you will have to start from getting members of the bar to pay their taxes the record of lawyers in paying taxes has been historically poor it is unfortunate but the most unpleasant fact the members of the professions in our country have not been known to set a good example when it comes to paying taxes they appear to think that being members of the learning professions put them above complying with everyday civic duties like paying taxes it is embarrassing the lawyers are often at the top of the list of those who flout our tax laws and use their expertise to avoid paying taxes i wish to call on all of us and the nation as a whole that we collectively re-examine our ways of life and the ways of corruption that are endemic we need to examine bribery which have not been normalized and accepted through gift giving which actively seeks to influence official conduct and to the detriment of the people who by merit deserve the opportunities snatched from them and from the people who have no monies to compete with such endemic corrupt practices allowing the institutions of state to work connected to the issue of endemic corruption in our society is the whom you know practice in our society it has become an accepted way of life that persons of power and influence interfere in official functions of public offices and exert and due influence such health conduct balloons into habit and soon into culture a major flaw with our tax system is a phenomenon described in popular violence as tax evasion it is that situation of citizens and persons working in ghana dodging their task obligations either by completely avoiding coming within the tax bracket when they ought to be or deploying illegal means to minimize their tax liability through fraudulent techniques this practice to say the least it is loyal to the state south to see many lawyers are caught within the in the phenomenon of tax evasion as they unjustifiably avoid being caught in the test net either by understanding and understating their profits or concealing their true income there is much a lot of individualism that has crept into both the professions and also to the the democratic process itself where people are more concerned about themselves as opposed to looking at the general welfare of the people so is that what you see at the bar that people are doing well it's it's it is in your position for personal gain no i'm not saying they are using their position what i'm want to say is that many lawyers are not preoccupied with how much money they can make rather than looking at the concept of justice you know i spent over 20 years teaching at a law school and my emphasis to them is to say that look in this whole wild world why will god choose you to be a lawyer there must be a purpose for it and what is the purpose i say you are god's instrument for justice god has chosen you and ordain you to be an instrument or a vessel for justice so don't talk about money because the money is not the issue money is a reward and god will reward you now with plenty of money as so many of them mistakenly believe but he'll make you make a at least a living and that's all you require because after all let's put it this way if you have plenty of money so what and so you have been listening to his excellency the president you had also the president of the bar i mean former call him immediate fast anthony forsen jr and then you had the attorney general who is the leader of the bar gopher dame yeah boa and some okudiato senior advocates he's a member of the council of state and so this dominated the bass annual conference in bogatanga at the desert pastures fountain gate chapel auditorium because that was a theme for the conference the rule that lawyers can play to maximize the country's you know income through taxation and the president who spoke on the matter said that a recent study by the world bank estimates that the total corporate tax gap is between nine point four percent and twelve point six percent of gdp 9.4 percent and 12.6 percent of gdp that's approximately 35.7 billion ghana series to 40 billion ghana cities that compliance gap he said is 39.3 percent of total vat revenue import duty tax gap he said is of 32.5 of import duty import revenue and listen to this potential tax revenues from sole proprietors who usually operate in the informal sector amounted to 12.6 percent 12.6 percent of uh gdp now the very last point he says our potential tax base has been widening from five million to 15 million people you know because of the ghana card which has been converted into 10 numbers that's it potential tax base is now from 5 million people to 15 million people an initial assessment of the data has listened to this one uncovered over 60 000 professionals 60 000 professionals and high net worth individuals not some common individuals high net worth individuals unregistered for tax regrettably several members of our esteemed legal profession fall within this bracket and will soon be receiving friendly phone calls from the tax authority and he concluded by saying i sincerely hope that those involved would move swiftly to regularize their tax affairs before the gra needs to crack their whip we need to build the culture of voluntary compliance david thank you very much for making the time to join us thank you okay let's hear you what do you say this is very sad commentary particularly on your esteemed profession of very wealthy people i don't know about very wealthy but the commentaries that were sad well i've been talking you know that once you're a lawyer if you are not lazy you will live a comfortable life reasonably generally yes but the commentary is sad actually but my my sadness quoted on quote about the commentary is not because of the number of lawyers who allegedly or reportedly are not paying taxes it's because i think that we are failing to understand what causes that the problem is with the system and not with the lawyers and and and give me the chance to explain what i mean if we narrow the discussion to the fact that lawyers are getting outside the tax bracket we are addressing the symptoms instead of the course now if you have a system where a large part of the society is generally informal you get this and you already gave the statistic about 12 percent of the a sec of the gap coming from the information let's look at how how the legal profession or how practicing lawyers are set up in the first place and it's one of the few countries in the world which are still sticking to the old tradition law firms here are set up mainly as partnership or sole proprietors if you moved the the compass and you pointed to cotton on good advanced countries you will find out that law firms are set up mainly as limited liability partnerships or as companies now there are law firms in ghana which are companies and i my famous one incidentally the immediate past president of the bus famous one it's very easy to go after law firms which are companies so they do come after us and we pay taxes and this may surprise you to know before we pay our tax we actually enlarge taxpayer my friend belongs to their life taxpayers units now the the way the system is organized is saying that it goes after those of us in the former sector and just keep taxing and taxing and taxing the reformers and leaving those in the informal sector and it's not just about lawyers recently there was an announcement about having won an award and a cousin of mine at gre called me and said oh the tax man will be in the office and i said you're already there the moment you are seen to be doing well they come after you and they audit you every year so you are stretched once those who are informal and unknown are quoted on good avoiding the system and that's basic now if you have a situation where law firms are set up largely as partnerships the personal tax liability dress on the individual and therefore they are not necessarily like in a corporate structure where the paye of the corporate entity itself tracks you to the individual so we've had this for a very long time the other reason about the system which really surprises me is that since 1982 2016 we've had 915 which introduced the tin number what what is so difficult about enforcing the team if a lawyer has a bank account or his president he necessarily must have a bank account and if he has a bank account he must necessarily have a team number if the system is not enforcing it then that becomes a problem i think the other leg is that because lawyers by their training generally understand tax law they are better equipped to avoid and the situation is not necessarily one of evasion there is one of our avoidance also and we and we need to look at that if we put all these factors together and you need to say you need to state immediately and explain what you mean by avoidance well avoiding tax is simply when you understand how the tax systems work and therefore you are able to pay less than when you ordinarily pay which is lawful yes it's lawful it's very lawful what's evasion is simply avoiding that i mean or failing to pay the tax all together right if you put all this together we have one category then there is a very big mistake on the part of the entire system we seem to think that the lawyer's contributing to revenue of the nation is only as a result of that is his or her ability to pay tax that is wrong and and as a discussion go on if you give me the chance i will elaborate a few but i can point at least two two situations where the nation itself indirectly finds a way of exporting the tax you'll be surprised that there are corporate entities operating in ghana foreign corporate entities who dispute outside the jurisdiction and the dispute is over tax and the only reason a ghanaian lawyer comes into it is when they realize that they need an expert opinion on ghanaian tax why should that dispute be certain outside the jurisdiction in the first place the system is porous and it allows a lot of people to escape the system so i would rather be broadening the discussion away from how lawyers are avoiding tax to how we can ensure that the legal profession as a whole can contribute to the increase in revenue generation and there are several examples we can we can discuss if you allow me right so you say that the issue is not exactly about the lawyer not paying tax or professionals not paying taxes it is one of them there is no limit to that but the system itself now got free dummy the attorney general who also spoke about the issue and felt it was it was uh quite an indictment on the professionals had some solutions he said a lawyer must show evidence of tax before your license will be renewed every year we renew our alliances he said this is one of the effective ways to ensure that everyone is paying tax but he admits and i read what he said i must admit that the failure of lawyers in ghana to discharge their full tax obligation it's not entirely their fault the absence of effective systems by the ghana revenue authority to ensure that all potential taxpayers are brought into the tax net is majorly responsible the gra ought to devise the appropriate mechanisms for ensuring that the tax net is broadened to its elastic limit in order to bring within it all potential taxpayers including all practicing lawyers what do you say i agree hundred percent uh with that with attorney general uh and i'll go further to look at what areas that it is that lawyers can contribute to increasing the revenue generation one of course is the fact that lawyers must pay tax and that i i blame the regulator i mean we do pay tax indeed you'll be surprised that we've had a situation where the gre actually wrote to certain law firms in ghana thanking them for ensuring that not only are they paying taxes but that their clients are also paying taxes so they are exceptions i mean our outliers and we must admit it so that's one the second thing that we overlook is that lawyers are a key influence in policy formulation and when you involve lawyers in policy formulation they point out to you the loopholes in the system which will enable you improve the closing the gaps in the tax bracket and if you look at not only the recommendation that tony general made but also the speech of uh dr ali nachia he made a lot of useful suggestions as to how we can help increase revenue that's that's one the other one is the fact that lawyers are involved in numerous commercial transactions because many people in the society limit their knowledge of lawyer's work to that of litigation and i would talk about litigation shortly we tend to overlook that the real money that lawyers can help bring to this the state is actually outside the court and let me illustrate stamp duty is a major source of revenue to the government and every agreement that requires to assume duty is done by a lawyer in one form or the other and because you have situations where lawyers are not encouraged to quote an ongoing encouragement they are clients to based on duty we have a situation where there is a large amount of seepage in that system so we have to look at how lawyers can help generate more revenue and example is some duty the other one is general commercial transactions drawing the attention of their clients do they need to actually take their tax component into account and then you have resolving disputes and because we have the the inability to to let lawyers contribute to tax policy involved in tax policy we are loopholes i'll give you an example we do have a law i don't remember the name of the act in ghana uh it relates to the chain where access for example to court processes can be denied if you don't display a thing why would anybody pass that law but that's what the law says why would not why would i rather not allow everybody to have access to justice and rather make sure that the payment of any compensation resulting from yeses is done through the court system and therefore before the payment is made the tax or the tin number should be displayed that way the government gets its taxes so if you turn the policy upside down you realize that you attract a larger amount of tax coming as a result of the work of lawyers then you have debt payments which are created very often and as a result you have a asset where the taxes that we have collected also moving away from the system because we we allow this huge amount of judgment deaths that we all we all talk about and and when we talk about collecting taxes we also look at how that money is spent and i think these are areas that we need to and lastly something the legal profession has quoted on good not being considered in this country as a segment of the profession that is an identified segment to contribute to the economy it is identified more for human rights and criticizing politicians and fighting against the libertarian regime etc but if i take uk's economic outlook the legal profession is identified clearly in the economic outlook as contributing to five percent of uk's gdp that amounts to about 50 billion pounds per annum okay if i ask you how much lawyers contribute to the organized gdp nobody can tell me it is because we overlook the multiplied effect of the profession and that's the reason why i'm saying that let us broaden the discussion first let's talk about before the lawyers must pay taxes that i agree okay but let us broaden the discussion as to how else we can contribute to ensure that the government gets more revenue okay um uh frank davis what do you have to say about this and for a very long time i i have had the opportunity and because of the privilege of where i sit to speak to you know attacks those who lead us in the tax process emmanuel coffeenti is a good friend of mine and any time i sat in his office the discussion had to go to how do we work on getting lawyers to pay their taxes it's been such a worry you continue to preach that we should keep to our core duties a lawyer has a full fourfold duty a duty to the client duty to the court duty to the profession and duty to the public what are we doing to have such a bad name thank you something this matter has rightfully come up when he has to when the president of the republican service also a trained lawyer has taken this charge on laws um [Music] fusu has given a rather broad art view an outline of what the issues are but i i want to narrow to the specifics and take the issues one after the other i can understand why this matter has come up from you because you are also a trained lawyer and this was an issue just topical at the bar conference now listening clearly to the president i i think he made a very instructive statement and what he said clearly was that the survey had disclosed that about 60 000 high net worth professionals were caught in the bracket of not fully complying with their tax obligations and it involved the creme de la creme [Music] in in in in the ghanaian society and he named them lawyers doctors architects accountants surveyors made individual consultants so it is it is not only the lowest per se who are avoiding or evading taxes there's a broad spectrum of professionals who are involved in this exercise so my point will be that how do we tackle this issue holistically and not narrow down to lawyers alone because we are not the only ones who have been found wanting now of us who give the broad outline they have so many categories of of of lawyers who are practicing we have companies which are unlimited we have limited liability companies we have partnerships and we have lawyers who practice without any known regular structure you you know what i'm talking about so the emphasis i believe should rather be laid at the doorstep of the gra they are the governing authority they are the ones to make sure that people stick to their civil duties and responsibilities to pay taxes i cannot understand why the gre should not be able to track down the number of law firms which are operating in the country and going after the laws in those offices to pay taxes it's easy to get a list isn't it very very easy this time when everything this of course true true i mean through the good works of it's actually the vice president almost everything in this country has been digitized now if we have law firms and the gra can go after the law firms there is no way any lawyer and there is no lawyer in this country who is not earning any money i i i find it very difficult to say i'm paying my lowest salaries but laws and money we earn a lot of money so if the gra is is is is acting actively and tracking on the law firms this issue will be abated because i mean the payment of taxes is a civic responsibility so the gra should be able to work on this and make sure that the firms which are registered can easily we can go to the company office and get the list of course the bar association has a list of laws that's right and law firm so it's it's not it's not a huge miracle it's something that can be done now the solution suggested by the attorney general yes the attorney general i i mean i don't i don't i don't agree fully with what my good friend uh gothra said i mean because there has to be legislation to the effect there is no law now which is that the practicing law the practical license of allah can only be renewed if he or she has not paid his taxes so if that is the advice be prepared by the attorney general he's the leader of the bar he knows what to do but you you cannot tie the pain of taxes to the renewal of of of a loyal slices there is no legislation to that effect so if if that is what if that's the way we want to go which will affect the national legislation and and make sure that this this is compliant because the only way a lawyer has his line since renewed is when he's a law of good standing he belongs to the profession his line system automatically will be renewed so uh that is the way i will look at it and i don't think we should be condemned too much like what you said some of us are paying taxes to our teeth maybe some of us are paying taxes i mean both both both both in the realm of la liga profession and as public servants of course i hold another portfolio as a public servant so we pay taxes whichever way so i think i think we should it should be narrowed down to what the gra is doing i know it used to be the case at first but now most most i can say most lawyers are paying taxes because we have moved from the regime where a law firm was made up of only two three laws and then they work everybody gets money puts it in this pocket and then we are all practicing and living up to standards because even if you don't keep up those standards uh the propensity for you to attract international clientele i mean it's limited so i think i think we we we should not be condemned too much we we are doing what best we can do and if if there's a system which can make us more regular in the payment of taxes why not i mean we will all agree to that professor pj what's what's your take on this uh graphic dummy said look um a corrupt lawyers group of lawyers who breed whatever corrupt even if it's judges that's how we all come from so if you have a client who is coming to you and you know they want you to help them as it were escape their tax liability rather you know uh don't work for them thank you i think all has been said by the previous speakers and i agree with their views that generally their the responsibility is not with the the lawyers and again most lawyers i know do pay taxes so i agree that they do pay taxes because the weather system is set up now the number of ways where you cannot just escape and i think lawyers are also responsible um citizens of the country and so that is the case in most cases but i think we we need to look at the grace mechanisms to ensure that they expand the tax nets so all that i'll add to it is that we we have been educated we have benefited from the country's resources we have been able to get some work to do as lawyers we have acquired a profession and some resources and therefore the duties on us to share pay back to the states but it is up to the institutions that are supposed to collect the taxes to do their job and that shouldn't be too possible too difficult for them to do and i think there's also that responsibility on lawyers to ensure that we we obey the law and also help others to obey the law so if we have a client who wants to um evade tax it is a criminal act and so we shouldn't do that but if it is tax avoidance that one is not an illegal act so i think that is where the gi also has to come into me to make sure that if there are some loopholes that need to be closed it will come by way of um proposing legislation so that those locals can be closed but if it is about avoidance and a lawyer advises the client to do that so long as he's not breaching the law then i don't think there's much of a problem there but the problem is with gary that needs to pluck those loopholes the gra says it is introducing a name and shame initiative um it's introducing a name and shame initiative in the meantime it is confirming that uh i quote that the temptation to think that many of them that's professionals are not paying is there i must admit that there are a lot of them that are not paying following the president's admonishing most of them have started calling us what do you say well if they started calling it's a good idea but i don't know if most of them have started calling because like other colleagues have already said a lot of lawyers i believe do pay their taxes and some through their private practice some of us also as public servants we do pay taxes yes so um i didn't catch the first part of the points you said because they are going to introduce name and shape yes yes the name and shame thing i don't think that is the way to go because if you don't pay your taxes it's a criminal act so just naming and shaming wouldn't be enough if you you just shame it's just a moral um application of the law and we should let the lord bite do you get that sense where some say the law is for the rich and not for the poor and rather against the poor when it's about professionals lawyers they seem to be treating those who are violating with kit gloss the one is the ordinary person who is set up some business trying to make a living heck out of living we go shut their shops and we do all the things that almost their business entirely certainly the law has always favored the rich and it has always favored the highly placed so that one is not in dispute and i'm sure in some respects we can say that it will it also apply to um how the law deals with lawyers and paying off taxes but at the end of the day the point is that um sometimes it is how these institutions deal with the lawyers it's not because the lawyers are not ready to pay the taxes or they cannot be compelled to pay one basis on this table all of you are saying that they should stop complaining and do what they have to say they don't complain to the ordinary you know person who needs to pay tax they crack the whip yeah yeah i i think that this the situation is not being put well they do crack the hip like prophet saying against less as well again let me emphasize the problem is with gre and and some of us are prepared to debate great day i'll give you an example ask any lawyer who has ever represented a client against gre i mean we were involved in a case as an example where gre had done what is called a commissioner's ruling for a client where the commissioner had already determined that the matter should be charged as a commission and the commissioner was changing his stance and applying the tax against the client then we said the gi couldn't do that and we found the rating was against the gra within a week even though we were paying taxes we had a tax clearance certificate the gra wrote to every single partner in the firm to have each partner update the personal they only go after people who either confront them and and you ordinarily you think i'm a privileged person they do come after all of us i have three year officers in my office now they come every year ask the other former sector law firm so the issue is being overstated it is not that it's just because lawyers perhaps have the skill to minimize the attacks the gre should rather broaden the whole arrangement there are large number of lawyers in the informal sector and they don't go after them it is those who are paying the tax that they keep taxing more and more that is the point um um so some of my our viewers are asking that we are talking about all of this and we are not paying attention to the questions of accountability what is the tax used for is that perhaps not one of the reasons people generally are reluctant to pay tax the president said our tax to gdp is 14.3 percent compares adversely to our peers sub-saharan african africa average of 18 percent and 34 for oecd countries i mean i i that that's that's true in any event i mean if you look at ghana and the way the economy is structured which rather should actually be doing better than the average but we are doing i mean west and average okay and i also agree with the comments about how the taxes are used but to have the moral authority to criticize how the taxes are used you must be paying your tax in the first place so i think it is important that we do hit the call to pay the taxes and then as a profession we should stop uh focusing too much on politics and also talk about things like taxes and the economy and commercial issues because those are at the end of the day what makes all of us strive so these are legitimate you must be discussing okay uh but we need to move to the next issue so that time doesn't uh swallow the question of tax you don't say something before the i think what is important also is to note that the president said we have a duty at mentioning the duties of the lawyer including one to the public and he said we should be giving we are in a unique role to provide advisory services to our clients against corrupt practices designed to facilitate illicit financial flows of funds and tax evasion and also that we can enhance and take an active role in literacy in taxation so that our populace will become aware of their duties uh to the state article 41 is it it's very clear that one of our duties is to pay our taxes as we work consensusly now the other side of the issues that came up was about issues of uh in discipline misconduct running to social media these days people issue rates and the next minute the rate is on is on social media but the the most critical part which we should touch on before we move on to sport has to do with the open uh letter or statement issued by a group of lawyers quite a number of them some of them are members of the association some of them are not members of the association i try to check lawyers in good standing and i saw some of the names they are not there some of them are not with the association at all but they raise issues they say that the confidence in the gba is at its lowest all-time lowest and the reputation of the gba as a vanguard of truth justice and accountability has lost a shine they say the gba has to rediscover itself and navigate a clean break from the association's recent history it has to rediscover its voice and its role as a moral conscience of our democracy they say a number of things that there's growing frustration with what uh they perceive to be a growing disengagement and inaction by the ghana by association in several situations of clear democratic irregularity and injustice that the reputation of the gba as the moral conscience of our democracy and a voice for justice uh many decades is is lost uh its long history of advocacy for the course of the right of course of right and for justice made the association a beacon of hope to many ghanaians uh so let's let's get to that uh issue and let me begin with uh professor apigee kojo pj because i see that the signatories you are one two three four five you are the fifth person to have signed this uh statement what exactly is the problem wow this is um this is interesting because i recall signing a petition some time back but it didn't encompass all the issues that have been raised so i must say um that i didn't know i'm one of those that signed this petition that is before you but i recall there was something circulated which i signed but it looks like there's a number of issues have been added to to the consensus but if you ask my my opinion personally i would say that the issues raised a bit um exaggerated but there are still concerns about what the ghana bar association could do i think that the ghana association has generally has a history of being very active and being supportive of issues that relate to human rights democracy the rule of law in the country and so if you go back to that history especially in the 70s or so when civil society's civil society activism was more or less an aberration to government and was not in place the ghana bar association found a place in its committees especially for example the human rights committee and so on to be active and that was the case in a number of other afghan countries where the bar associations were able to confront governments about human rights violations and europe law issues and so on they call for democracy and so playing back into when ghana the fall of the berlin wall and there were attempts to reintroduce democracy in ghana that gb also played an active role in in that and we also have a situation where in a number of cases that gba has risen up go to courts and confront issues where for example achieved asses there are concerns about the chief justice for example in the urban case and so on so the gb has done a lot of work in that respect but i recall during the days of uh brexit president before we we saw a situation where the gba began to be less active and be less ready to criticize the kuffar regime on on the basis that they thought democracy is now working confined and there was no need to to rock the boat if there was nothing to talk about and that is where i think there may be a situation like this creeping now into the gba that there is a need for the gba to sit up and do more certainly there's a lot we can do and i i don't think that it's only the gba i in some respects there's some sort of cooperation even if you look at utac which is my own association at the university of ghana and universities in ghana and they have also been calls that we need to be more active it's not only when issues concern us that we need to sit up and talk about we can talk about the churches the christian council of ghana the the catholic bishops conference they were all very active in in the past and we still have a number of issues that the government needs to be pushed to do the right thing it's used about corruption of our rule of law is and so on so i think that is why gba should sit up and say that we can identify certain problems that on a regular basis we can talk about and we can set up committees and involve individuals to talk about issues that will ensure that we put the government on these tools i think that is where the problem is and we certainly need to do more and if we do that i think that perception which uh exists will be it will be raised but i wouldn't say that gba has been very dull and not doing anything at all i see um what you say from david that's about almost 100 people putting their signature to this statement and accusing the gba of having lost its critical voice as a vanguard of the society yeah before before i answer that before i speak to that let me have my last take on this tax issues uh i will urge those who question and advocate what our taxes are useful to also contribute their quarter national development most often do not you realize that those who make all these loud noises hardly pay any taxes at all so you should all join in in in nation and country building now uh uh something you just commented that most of the members you look through the list of lawyers in good standing and most of the lawyers who sign on to this beauty chain regrettably are not lawyers in good standing is that right some of them yes yeah i find that a bit worrying but let's discuss now they are actually not with the association at all so but let's discuss the issues they have come i don't know where this live protestation is coming from that we have lost our shine we should rediscover ourselves to be the voice of vanguard we have lost accountability of our issues lost our voice but look let us let us discuss this issue from the backdrop you see we have moved away from militarism and autocratic military despots and governments and people people should should should understand that we are now in the culture of democratic constitutional rule we we are in the era of the rule of law so most of the issues which confront us get settled in the low courts and whilst martins are pending in the locals lawyers are not allowed to comment or to run commentaries on matters which are subjudica now in the past because there was tyrannical rule the gangnam association was seen as the vanguard and voice of the nation because most of the other professional associations with the greatest of respect were not known to be voices which stood up against dictatorship i can recall that it was the gba and then the trading congresses and other self-styled individuals who took the mantle against the government so at that time the gba was found as the lone voice propagating against a will in society and fighting military dictatorship so because of the move away from military despots and autocratic rule to democratic governance people think that the gba has lost its voice but i i sharply disagree and i want those who who who are pushing that line to give instances where they think that gba is not complaining about martyrs which are ongoing and which affect the fabric of society let me give a classical example quite recently this kaka debacle which which which resulted in this in this committee been formed to look into the killings and disturbances when a committee is set up to investigate martyrs and the work of the committee is ongoing what will people expect the gba to ask that the gba should should leap over itself and be commenting on matters which are before an investigative body but even that the gba issued a statement the gba issued a statement that they would think that the investigations will be conducted in accordance with the dictators of the terms of reference of the committee and the committee will come out of the full-scale investigation deliver their report to the governing authority and then we see the way forward of course the committee has finished his work it has delivered this report to the appointing authority and we are all waiting for the recommendations and whatever report will come out of it now in the not too distant past there was this issue which had to do with this three panelist journalists were on a radio program and actually round down the judiciary and the one two three the one two three martyr they got they got cited for contempt and we know what happened at the end of the day at the end of the day they they got a pardon from the sexuality the president at that time the gba found that situation a bit uncomfortable that of course if the judiciary has been run down in such a manner to the extent that some of them i mean i don't want to repeat the kind of language which was used and the highest court of the land has been scandalized in such a manner and the gba issues a statement that of course it is this is in the purview of his excellency the president to access a pardon but such exercise of pardoning should be done with the utmost discretion as a construction gouging the mood of the society and country at that time okay and when the gba issued that statement something you are in this country with me you realize the kind of vilification the insults that was vested on the gpa so if in one breath people are saying that the gb has lost his voice and in another breath the gba is condemnable of actions which are taken and the gba is lumbastic and we the lowest do not rise up to support what the gb is doing can anybody come play okay um we'll have a final c on this unfortunately time has run out on us um but the the the the the people who would say like uh franklin is just illustrated presently there is a member of parliament sitting member of parliament who also took the took judges to the cleanest sat on television and insulted judges berated them and the dba has not been heard about it so people refer to that as well what do you say are you still what you used to be i think there are two ways we should look at this first is the question of who is responsible for reacting to what generally you say affects the legal profession and i think because of the gba's quoted on good popularity people often confuse the gba with the general legal counsel there are some matters regarding for example commentary on social media etc that the gba may take a stand and other lawyers may have a different stand on it i think it is for the regulator to come in and set the rules uh on social media in particular the last time that generally hasn't issued ruse to the best of my knowledge it was the 2012 guidelines on facebook and other social media and then they present their life to 2354 which has a section on on that but as society grows you'll find that we always have to con i mean constantly respond and i would take us a bit back to history in 1999 my friend frank davis would recall one of the decisions or one of the the the discussions at the greater grab bar at that time i think i wrote it was the president of the great accra but how to do it whether lawyers for example should be allowed to have websites and you'll find that that time it was a relevant issue now it is no more an issue what is an issue is how do we guide lawyers using social media that's one aspect so i want to push that to the regulator the second aspect is that by yourself and i agree with almost everything frank davies has said about the fact that the bar used to be and those were the seventies responding to a champion and things like that from 1992 to now the bar has finds itself in a new position and i will record particularly the statement made by the president of the bar i think in the early 2000s who actually said that the bar was now going to refrain from commenting on political issues because we had a constitutional democracy etc unfortunately there have been occasions where the bar had i mean as it were made commentary on political issues so then you have this criticism etc etc having said that my my take on the matter is very simple every organization and the gbh1 must constantly remain relevant and to remain relevant the organization must check itself as to how it remains relevant at a particular moment in time at this moment in time in a constitutional democracy our relevance is faced to our members and the membership structure itself has changed significantly it has changed significantly from almost an entirely litigation-based structure to a fair bit of litigation based lawyers and you'll find that a number of people who are not in the litigation group tend to be the ones who sign those kind of statements i i can bet that that would be a very large category of them so the relevance to these members itself is beginning to have challenges second has to do with relevance to its clients and we have a large client base who perhaps may belong to one side of a very polarized society and may think why is a ban on commenting on this and why is the bar not commenting on that the gpa needs to take a position as to what do i do in this context and the last one has to do with relevance to the wider society the gba needs to be able to specify what are the areas that i comment on and what are the areas i don't comment on something i'll conclude on this point all right thank you myself justice minka premo and i think frank davies former president of the bar were considered as a tax force to develop a strategic plan for their back which we did now that strategy plan has likely not been implemented to the best of my knowledge you will find in that strategy plan there is a lot of restructuring to be done if we do that our relevance will become more relevant towards a better way to the modern times and these accusations even though i'm not entirely in agreement acquisitions but accusations are likely to become less if you become more relevant thank you so very much gentlemen unfortunately this is all we can have for this segment and bringing the sports guys to tell us about uh our search for a coach uh well frank david would have been qualified to give us some insight into this but i think he may not want to thank you so very much uh mr frank davies i'll be all conflicted okay okay all right thank you so very much you very much thank you so very much um so thank you all guys uh professor cuido apria school of law university of ghana frank davis senior member ghanabad association immediate past president accra greta krab association and chairman governing board of the dvla david ofusudote a senior partner a.b and david africa of course earlier we spoke to professor kwesi inning thank you all so very much we will take a quick break and return to ask the question is the coach to blame for the black star sports showing thank you [Music] you

Channel: JoyNews

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Keywords: Ghana Bar Association: Lawyers not paying taxes, misconduct on social media - Newsfile (18-9-21), Ghana Politics, NPP, NDC, National Budget, Economy, Constitution, Election, campaign, joy News, News file, Current Affairs, matters arising, Samson Lardi

Id: U3KSRU8FxSY

Length: 60min 23sec (3623 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021