Ghana’s General Legal Council has allegedly invited Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the lead convener for the #FixTheCountry movement, seeking to strike him off the list of lawyers in the country.
According to him, the invitation was in respect of a complaint filed against him with the council following his coup comment for which the state is already prosecuting him for treason felony.
“When it rains it pours. Where the Attorney-General fails, the General Legal Council is there to catch them.
“I have received an email from the General Legal Council inviting me to answer a complaint seeking to strike me off the list of lawyers.
“The complaint relates to the same Coup comment the Attorney-General is prosecuting me for,” Barker-Vormawor’s post reads.
Meanwhile, his alleged invitation has sparked reactions, with many Ghanaians describing the GLC as a useless organization whose disbandment was long overdue.
A Us-based Ghanaian law professor, Kawaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, who has been noted for championing the call for the GLC’s dissolution, reacted to its invitation to Barker-Vormawor, reiterating that the council has lost its relevance.
“The GLC is moribund. I have said that since 2015,” he wrote on Facebook.
Another legal luminary, who happens to be the executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh, also reacted, describing the invitation by the GLC to the popular social activist as an “abuse of the General Legal Council”.
The General Legal Council is the constitutionally mandated body responsible for the organisation of legal education and upholding standards of professional conduct and discipline for legal practitioners across the country.
It was set up in 1960 by an Act, the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32) to consolidate and amend the law relating to the legal profession in Ghana.
The GLC has over the years meted out various sanctions, including reprimanding, suspension for a period of time, among others, to lawyers who were found to have fallen foul of professional ethics.
The current members of the council’s disciplinary committee are:
Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, JSC – Chairman
Justice Samuel Marful-Sau, JSC – Member
Justice Irene Charity Larbi, JA – Member
Mr. Sam Okudzeto, Senior Legal Practitioner – Member
Hon. William O. Boafo, Legal Practitioner – Member
Mr. Peter Zwennes, Former Vice President, Ghana Bar Association – Member
Mrs. Franklina Gesila Adanu – Legal Counsel
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