CJ advises lawyers to uphold integrity

The Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood on Friday charged young lawyers to uphold and defend the integrity of the legal profession.

She said presently, the legal profession is at the cross-roads and as such there is the need for the enforcement of legal ethics to the fast changing pace of legal education and practice.

Mrs Georgina Wood was speaking at the enrollment of 226 new lawyers to the Bar in Accra.

The newly enrolled lawyers have undergone two years of dedicated professional study, passed the requisite examinations, attained the necessary standards of proficiency in the law and adjudged to be of sound moral character.

Other important dignitaries at the ceremony were Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur and wife, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Nene Amegatcher, President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and Justices of the Superior Courts.

Mrs Wood said lawyers, as believers in the rule of law, have a singular opportunity to stand up and be counted and save the profession and society from further decline.

She said while money has come to define the success in legal practice, “I would counsel against professional vanity.

“One of the simplest sacrifices you can directly make within your sphere of influence is to render some modicum of legal aid to the indigent in our society,” she added.

The Chief Justice said the strength of any organization lied in the integrity of individual members and other components of the organization, urging lawyers to imbibe the virtue of integrity, self-discipline and industry.

She commended lawyers for being at the forefront of people’s struggle for freedom and justice and must see themselves as having a duty to represent the voiceless in society.

She called on them to give their maximum support to the bar as it forged ahead with their laudable vision of helping to entrench sound ethical values in the profession.

She said the face of the legal practice in Ghana would definitely undergo significant changes in the coming years, but the noble core professional values and ideals that could usher them into the professions respected hall of fame would remain unchanged.

Ms Nada Belinda Aidoo was adjudged the overall best lawyer in the part I and II examination.