WHY READ LAW: THE OVERWHELMING RESPONSIBILITY OF A LAWYER KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HON. MRS JUSTICE A. BAH, JSC GUEST SPEAKER OF THE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL CALL TO BAR CEREMONY LAW COURTS COMPLEX, INDEPENDENC DRIVE, BANJUL 6TH FEBRUARY, 2023 Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen Good morning to all, Asalamu Alaikum It always gives me great pleasure to witness a Call Ceremony or graduation of law students at the University of The Gambia. It is a matter of great pride when | look back, as a member of the steering Committee for the establishment of the Faculty of Law at the University of The Gambia in 2006. The graduates of the Law Faculty have over the years been feeding the Law School with most of those who have severally passed through its moulding to qualify as Barristers and Solicitors of the Supreme Court of The Gambia. Today we are witnessing the 11" Call to the Bar Ceremony. We have indeed come a long way. My profound congratulations to the New Wigs of Class of 2021/2022, for successfully going through the rigorous drilling at the Law School and proving that they are worthy of being enrolled to the Gambia Bar . It could not have been easy. The success and satisfaction that you feel today must be treasured for eternity as you have now left the comfort zone of the classroom stepping into the realities of practicing the law as you commence your pupilage. Always remember that "when the going gets tough, only the tough 1gets going". Each day out there cannot be as satisfying and as fulfilling as this day, so this day should be the adrenaline when you reflect back, to keep you going when the going gets tough. A young lawyer must learn by doing. Once a young lawyer acknowledges that they have a lot to learn and see learning as part of the process, it gets easier. Upon the completion of your pupillage and enrolment with The Gambia Bar, it is as a lawyer that you will present yourself to the public, to your clients, to your learned colleagues and even to your family and friends, This designation is significant and permanent. It is one that does not end when you decide to retire or even when you cease to practise. \am grateful to the General Legal Council for the honour bestowed upon me by inviting me to deliver this speech at this very august Call Ceremony. | am in deed delighted. The Director General of the Law School, Mrs Rougie Thomas, honoured me the more when she said that | was at liberty to speak on any topic of my choice. | am deeply humbled by this gesture. Thank you. My Lord, the Chief Justice, My Lords and My Ladies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, | pondered over and over on the topic of my address bearing in mind the Presence of eminent speakers within our mist and the hitherto speeches that have been delivered over the years at past Call Ceremonies. My fear is not to deliver up to standard. | plead for forbearance "if | may stagger in the attempt to acquit myself". The answer to my pondering was however right there in my face. A simple question. "WHY READ LAW". The subject of my address this morning is therefore, "WHY READ LAW: THE OVERWHELMING RESPONSIBILTY OF A LAWYER". Ruskin in The Essays: "Unto This Last’, suggests that “Five great intellectual professions relating to the daily necessities of life have hitherto existed in 2very civilized nation: The soldier's profession is to defend it. The Pastor's to el teach it. The physician's to keep it in health. The Merchant's to provide for it. The Lawyer's to enforce justice in if’. | chose the lawyer’s profession and as Uncle Fafa E, M’Bai a distinguished legal luminary who is retired but not tired would say “charmed by my great fascination for the spoken word, the formulated idea, the expressed thought and the system of logic manifest in its study”. But above all, | was charmed by the fact that | saw lawyers as defenders of human rights who took up the fight for the aggrieved and as guardians of the rule of law. At a point in our lives, there are forces pulling us in opposite directions, particularly when it comes to choosing a career. At that point, we are just emerging as young men or women, full of energy and the conviction that we hold the world in our palms. So, most of us hasten to choose the legal profession for the personal aggrandizement that come with it such as the prestige or the belief that we will become affluent. However, there is an overarching reason to choose the legal profession and that is to serve humanity, both those at the bottom of the social ladder and those at the peak of the hierarchy. The question is often asked, are lawyers only interested in their selfish professional careers and successes, whether within or outside the law? My answer is an emphatic "No". "No", because | know that there is more to it than that. An indeed for many of you | know that there is more to it than that. The study of law gives you additional opportunities to learn more than the law. If you take advantage of them you will learn about your fellow human beings: you will think about your fellow human beings. The study of the law gives you 3wnat opportunity to test your attitudes to life. Your prejudices and your preconceptions. | do not think that any other subject, perhaps philosophy, offers so much food for thought. It broadens your minds - not just about the law, but about everything that bears on the lives that you young men and women are going to live. It also gives you the additional opportunity to contribute to civil life in our country. The law is the bedrock of a nation: "it fells us who we are, what we value... Almost nothing has more impact on our lives. The law is entangled with everyday existence, regulating our social relations and business dealings, controlling conduct which could threaten our safety and security, establishing the rules by which we live. It is the baseline", according to Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC, and former Chair of the British Council, in her book “Just Law”. The law as we all know it is the life blood of a nation. Sometime | feel alarmed at the all-encompassing functions of the law. I feel alarmed because like everyone else here, | am overwhelmed at the sheer awesomeness of the responsibility we all must bear by dint of our calling. For the work we do is a calling, a vocation. Members of the public may admire our black gowns and horse hair or synthetic white wigs, or they may be turned off by them. They may even scoff at them. Students may engage in debate as to whether our robes and wigs are the relics of colonialism or whether the time has come to discard them. But these are not our concern. We are the ministers of the law. When a person is ill, a doctor is needed to diagnose, prescribe and do whatever is necessary to save life. The patient lives and is happy to have the gift of life and good health. The same person suddenly finds themselves ors 4ne verge of losing their house or land or even their job. They may instead find they have been badly cheated in a business transaction or are victims of sexual and gender based violence or even locked up in some trifling accusation. They need a lawyer, and they need the court. Where they cannot brief a lawyer who will sort through the maze of their problems, they begin to see that their life has no value or meaning. They soon find out too, that their tablets, injections and what not, can only translate to good health and life when there is value added. As ministers of the law, we are equipped to add that value, to give meaning to the lives of people through legal advocacy and the application of the law. The right to life is as much as the right to access to the law. For the role we play in sorting out the lives of the people and making these lives meaningful; for constantly staving off human tendencies to resort to a Hobbesian state of nature that are important to the individual would rest in the actions we take, | come to the conclusion that we are called to take leading roles, to be leaders in sorting out the affairs of mankind. | see the frontier roles that lawyers must play in ensuring that the day-to-day affairs of persons, natural and artificial, are regulated by proper conduct, even in family relationships. In their book "The Lawyer Myth: A Defense of the American Legal Profession", Rennard Strickland & Frank T. Read had this to say of lawyers: "At the most pragmatic level, lawyers are society's professional problem solvers. Lawyers are called upon to make distinctions, to explain how and why cases or experiences are alike or different. Lawyers are expected to restore equilibrium, to be balancers. Every discipline, every profession, every job, and every calling has a cutting edge. At that cutting edge, lines are drawn. Lawyers and judges are society's ultimate line drawers. On one side of the line, the conduct, action, or inaction is proper; on the other side of the line, it is not.” 5Lord the Chief Justice, My Lords and My Ladies, Class of 2021/2022 Ladies and gentlemen, , Ours is the noblest of the Professions, Let and women. In the speech biography of Orator of Justice” we read the speech delivered to the American Bar Associatio, he said, Us always remain honourable men Viscount Buckmaster entitled ol “An n “The Romance of The law" he Nn at Detroit in September 1925, when to which man’s energies can be called, of justice, “Our profession is the greatest We are servants in the administration It is therefore a Profound mistake to think that a lawyer Should be a man who by a device can secure victory in law Courts for his clients. Ey, ‘ery lawyer down to the youngest ought to remember that he, in his smalt degree, is assisting in something more than merely settling a quarrel between two pe ‘ople. He is a minister of justice.” “What are the qualities he should possess?” He asks. “He should have a sense of honour. He should have courage undet feated and faith undefiled and he should be ready to ignore at once all Popular applause and popular abuse. He should remember that when the sound of Pi ublic approval tickles the ears of any man, whether a judge upon the Bench or a counsel at the Bar, when he ds flattered by the Passing breach of popular favour, the administration of Justice at once becomes in great danger. No fear of ill-informed censor should influence his/her courage. No hope of unearned Praise should give him/her any pleasure.” “To the Romans justice was a goddess, and surely she may without treason to our faith remain a goddess still; the goddess whose symbols are known to all; a throne that tempests cannot shake; a pulse that passion cannot stir; eyes that are blind to all feeling of favour or ill-will, and the sword that falls on all 6offenders with equal certainty and with impartial strength”. This is madam justicae standing right here in this foreyard. This then is she to whose service we are committed and dedicated and in the temple that holds her shrine all we, who study and practice the law and speak its language, can gather together as one congregation and worship side by side. Therefore, one of the most important of the traditions of this great profession which you should be able to assimilate and uphold is that the court is the temple of justice and both the judge upon the Bench and the advocates at the Bar are equally ministers of justice. Justice is only to be reached through the ascertainment of truth and the trial is the process by which we endeavour to find the truth. The pursuit for truth is a noble one and those who are honoured are the instruments engaged in it. Let us not forget that the advancement of justice and the ascertainment of the truth are higher and nobler objects than any which we propose to ourselves. I must, therefore, caution you young ones, that ours is an honourable calling. We are ministers for the law, for fair treatment, for truth and for justice anywhere, everywhere. We prosecute offenders, social evils and the enemies of society. We defend, protect and safeguard lives, freedoms and property of all humankind from before birth until after death; from the womb to the tomb we are the conscience of society. And those of us who are judges, we have the greatest and most solemn responsibility — next only to God in deciding and sitting in judgment over the lives and affairs of our fellow human beings. Let us imagine for a moment, a world without lawyers and therefore without law. | am sure that if lawyers did not exist, it will be necessary to invent them. We must therefore by our collective and individual example as members of 7inis noble profession continue to be the safety value of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It is our responsibility to deal with the peoples’ misfortunes, problems and difficulties within the complexities of society and which would continue to be with us and must be solved. J W Davies, a past President of the American Bar brilliantly defended our profession in his address to the American Bar Association when he said: “True, we build no bridges. We raise no tower. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures, There is little of all that we do which the eyes of men can see, But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men’s burden; and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of man in a peaceful state.” Undoubtedly, ours is the noblest profession but this great honour carries with it very grave and great responsibilities. "We must carry cross with crown”. Let us not forget that being lawyers, we have an enduring responsibility; we are called to lead. The calling of a lawyer certainly comes with great responsibilities and expectations. The profession has its traditions and values that one must respect, standards that must be upheld both before the court and amongst colleagues. You must however know and am sure that you have already been taught, that the ethics of the Bar are not precisely those of everyday life, but they are strict. Lawyers must do their work with absolute honesty, according to the ethics of the profession. "If there is anything more important than any other in a lawyer, it is that he or she should be honest. He or she must be honest with his or her client. He or she must be honest with the court. Above all, he or she must be honest with him or herself." Says Lord Denning, the Master of the 8polls in his book "The Road to Justice". One must therefore never tell a lie. one must never tell the witness to lie. One must never express one’s personal opinion of the truth and justice of one's case, or of the reliability of a witness, because one speaks as an advocate, not as a private person. On the other hand, one is entitled to accept what one does not personally believe, if a witness has said it on his/her own account. One is entitled to argue that the court should accept this, that, or the other evidence whether one does so or not in one's own heart. A further charge on the lawyer is that the lawyer should recognise his or her duty to his or her client, his or her duty to the state, along with his or her duty to the court - i.e a duty to the cause of justice itself and, as such, must never suppress or distort the truth. But above all, the lawyer owes a duty to him or herself that he or she shall as far as lies in his or her power, a man or woman of complete integrity. No profession calls for higher standards of honour and uprightness, and no profession perhaps, offers greater temptations to forsake them; but whatever gifts a man may possess, be they never so dazzling, without the supreme qualification of an inner integrity he will fall short of the highest. There is the need and urgency for the recognition and observance of the duty and the likely legal consequences and social effects for failing to do sO. The advocate gives to his client the benefit of his learning, his talents and his judgment but... he never forgets what he owes to him or herself and to others. He will not knowingly misstate the law. He will not wilfully misstate the facts, though it be to gain the cause for his client. He will ever bear in mind that if he be retained and remunerated for his services by a client, yet he has a prior and perpetual retainer on behalf of truth and justice. 9rhe administration of justice In thls country and elsewhere depends largely upon the confidence which the Bench reposes in the Bar and of the Bar in each other. It is a confidence which is very seldom abused. This does not mean however, that during the course of the years there has not occasionally been an individual who has sought to deceive the court and take unfair advantage of his opponent. Such men/women however are soon recognised for what they are and the life of a lawyer would be uncomfortable if he/she forfeits the confidence of the Bench and of his fellow practitioners. Great damage to the administration of justice can be done when there is an absence of mutual respect between the judge and the advocate. There must be what is described as institutional respect. Justice is better served when there is a degree of professional harmony between the legal profession and the judicial holders. We are in the judicial process engaged in doing justice according to law. The quality of the process is heavily dependent on the quality of the lawyers who appear before us in our courts. The importance of the role of the lawyer in contemporary systems is completely undiminished. It is not one jot less important now than it used to be. Techniques may have changed, with modern technology and modern methods. The modern world with all the dramatic revolutionary changes which we are familiar has not altered these principles. The lawyer is still who he or she was. Undoubtedly, a lawyer must be committed to his or her client's cause. A lawyer's ability to apply himself effectively to every aspect of a client's case and to his responsibility as an officer of the court to ensure that justice is in no way compromised indicates the level of commitment of the lawyer. 10owever an able lawyer without commitment will not be in a position to channel his skills effectively. A committed lawyer without ability will not be able to offer legal representation of the desired quality. A committed, able but unethical lawyer will, when he is found out, at the very least, lose the respect of the court and of colleagues. The legal profession also has a great tradition for competence. You must familiarize yourself with all the facts and documents of a given case and the applicable laws. The advocate must be proficient: he or she must be able to understand all the circumstances of the case and how the principles of the law apply to it. But the effective conduct of a trial involves more than expertise in law and procedure. Personal attributes go a long way towards making a successful lawyer. The supreme test in my view is "preparation". Preparation is the be-all and end-all of trial success. The stupid man it will make bright, the bright, brilliant, and the brilliant, steady. A lawyer must be a person of knowledge and must add daily to his or her stored mind to widen his or her horizon. Possess a command of the language and clarity of speech for effective communication; He or she must strive to be a man of letters and would learn the magical and miraculous effect of words. He or she must also be a person of character. The court must be able to rely on his words and which is his or her bond. He or she must exude confidence in his or her work, for a lawyer who shows lack of faith in his or her own case is not likely to make a positive impression. A lawyer must be amiable, polite, and ethical and show respect for the authority of the court. Yet a lawyer must not be timid for the success of his or her case may depend on the quality of his persistence. He or she must be independent and have the courage to stand by his or her arguments. The independence of a lawyer is of great and "7,ssential value to the integrity, efficiency, the elucidation of truth and dispatch of business in the administration of justice. These matters are of paramount importance. Likewise he or she must have etiquette and be courteous, no excuse for impoliteness. Besides it is also good manners, and as of all professions and particularly true of the Bar, "manners makyth man". The tradition of friendliness at the Bar is enormous. In no profession would you find less jealousy or snobbery. When you become called and enrolled, you would be joining the band of brothers and sisters in which everyone, from the most senior member to the youngest junior, will be only too anxious and willing to help you. So if you find yourself in difficulty, which you sometimes surely will, do not be afraid of going to another member for advice. He or she would once have been in your position and will gladly help for every old lawyer was once a young lawyer. It is all part of the tradition. Along with all these responsibilities is also the noble and sacred tradition that no lawyer should for whatever reason, refuse a case for which he or she has been properly briefed, for which he or she is available and which is in his or her area of expertise of practice. We cannot refuse the instruction of client simply because we do not like them or based on some other discriminatory factor. It would tantamount to a profound misconduct to do so. On the other side of this coin is the laudable tradition of helping lay citizens through pro bono work. A lawyer must be prepared to accept a brief pro bono publico .... for public good. Lawyers are in a unique position to help individuals, groups, and organizations with their legal problems and further the public good. Public interest lawyers champion legal causes for the greater good of society and help those in need of legal assistance who might not otherwise be able to afford a lawyer. Lawyers in private practice often perform pro bono work to 12Fas low-income individuals and underserved portions of the population such as the elderly, victims of domestic abuse and children, etc. One may pause to ask, in all the difficulties and challenges of the modern day life, can such responsibilities and standards be obeyed. | say "Yes" as was the answer yesterday. The ethics and traditions of our noble profession are a way of life. The more you live it, the more you acclimatise. Distinguished luminaries of past and present have done it, so why not us. Ours is a sacred calling and we must show by our conduct that we can live and abide by its tenants. We must refute the negativities to which we are often unfairly subjected. Give a deaf ear to unfounded criticisms and believe that we can achieve any goal we set for ourselves, no matter how high or lofty. There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. I will now conclude by saying that aside all these responsibilities and traditions of our noble profession, the reality remains that to succeed in law you have to put your nose to the grindstone for a good few years and watch, learn, develop and grow. Do not be in a hurry to start making money at the expense of lives and properties of the poor clients who seek for your services. The successful lawyers, particularly at the Bar, differ from each other to a most remarkable extent, both in their manner and in their methods. The only common factor at first sight amongst them is that they succeed more often than they lose. Mind you, they do lose now and again. However, one common factor they share is that they are themselves. They have gradually developed their own method to suit their own character and personality. So if there is one thing that | think one can safely say to any beginner, is to be him or herselfnatural surroundings: To e can be in such unl s can be in your calling. ral as he oF sh natu! p be .s and be as natural a en wigs, | say be yourselves most important attribute of a lawyer. It can * ane ive in any law school and it should pervade the heart, the we i. ee chambers of the mind (per Robert F. Kennedy). The ee aan tthe legal profession is extremely draining. When you choose " eu are choosing @ path that often requires putting in long re for each case. Clients can be demanding. Your m simple but end up being complex depending on dvice to you is start by committing to taking time off dule for your own wellbeing. If you are worried about missing moments of rest into your work life may ce. In the end for courage is the hard truth to be a lawyers hours to study and prepal assignments may see! variety of factors. My ai your busy sche ‘out, remember that building deliberate actually end up boosting your overall productivity and performan in life you have to live with yourself. If you backed of something really want to “| didn't have the guts". If you do your best and it “well, | gave it my best shot". Now for those t on your colleague, do - you would live to say doesn't work out, you would say - of you for whom it works or luck has shine on you and nof please do remain humble. There is nothing more fulfilling and rewarding than life at the Bar. | woke up this morning and asked my inner-self again, “If you were to choose another profession in life, what it would be?” the obvious answer came up again, “of course, Law”. | pray that your answers would be the same twenty - thirty years down the line. | hope that you will all have happy, successful and fulfilling careers at the Bar after your enrolment. Never forget its great traditions. See to it that you cherish and defend them and pass them untarnished to those who come after you. My prayer would therefore be: 14tnank God for casting us in the legal profession, dedicate: 14 +0" Justice, “ied with the sanctity of reason. The law has honoured us. And we shail We ys honour the Jaw." my Lords, My Ladies, Class of 2021/2022, distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all. 15