Open Statement to the Ghana Bar Association
    
We the undersigned lawyers, many of whom are members of the Ghana Bar Association, have opened this Statement to express our growing frustration with what we perceive to be a growing disengagement and inaction by the Ghana Bar Association in several situations of clear democratic irregularity and injustice.
 
For several decades in this country, the Ghana Bar Association carved a reputation as the moral conscience of our democracy and a voice for justice. Its achievements are well documented. Its long history of advocacy for the cause of right and for justice made the Association a beacon of hope to many Ghanaians.
 
As lawyers, we know first-hand the privilege that we occupy in society. Several of our democratic institutions depend on and are held together by the industry of valued members of our Profession and this Association. Today, all three branches of Government are held by Members of Our Profession. Even in the Media, which is touted as the Fourth Arm of Government, a lawyer and member of this Association was recently crowned Journalist of the Year.
 
In fact, several provisions of the constitutional document that grounds our democracy reserves several positions which are integral to the sustenance of our democracy to lawyers. In the same way the Ghana Bar Association remains one of the very few private associations specifically mentioned by the 1992 Constitution. It remains also the only Association which formally boycotted the process leading to the adoption of that Constitution and yet was entrusted with roles in that very Constitution.
 
We believe that the faith the people of Ghana placed in the Ghana Bar Association when they ratified the 1992 Constitution was not by accident. It was precisely an endorsement of the Ghana Bar Association’s institutional legacy of seeking truth, accountability and fighting for the little guy.
 
But to whom much is given, much is expected. Gradually, over the course of our longest democratic era, we are pained to see that the Ghana Bar Association has lost the fire in its belly and its role as the guardian of the little person. The Association we love has lost its voice and its fire. It has lost its desire to fight for democratic accountability. We have allowed our lights dim so low, that we have disappeared as protectors of this democracy.
 
Our disengagement has been felt. Our indolence has allowed illegality, abuse of rights and injustice to fester. The Ghana Bar Association today looks like a pale shadow of itself. The moral weight of its history now stands devalued by successive leaderships that have given the Association little sense of purpose or direction. Not only does our history indict us, but our present now counts only as proof of how much we have defamed this Association and made cheap its promise to “concern itself with the defence and upholding of freedom and justice in Ghana."
 
This can no longer be our story. We have to do more. We have to be different, and we have to do better.
 
By this open letter, we are awakening all that is good in the legal profession and in the Ghana Bar Association. We are calling on the moral conscience of us all in this profession and the Ghana Bar Association to do more. To sustain our democracy, we cannot abdicate our responsibility nor shirk our duty.  
 
The path to true Justice and an equitable democracy is long and certainly tedious. And we cannot afford to slumber nor falter in the steps we take to protect our democracy.
 
Yours in the Service of the Republic
 
The Undersigned