Lawyers should specialized in their profession - AG

Accra, August 31, GNA - Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Minister of Justice and Attorney General on Monday called for regular refresher courses for lawyers to enable them to understand international contracts and arbitration process.

She said the law profession today has become increasingly more specialized and as such lawyers should not be content with their current state but should be able to specialize in a particular aspect of the profession.

Mrs Mould-Iddrisu was speaking at the opening of a five-day course on Arbitration Law for Attorneys in the Civil Division of the Attorney General's (AG) Department in Accra.

The programme which is being organized by AG's department in collaboration with the Department of Law of the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, is aimed at building the capacity of state attorneys to be able to understand International Commercial Law, especially oil and gas contracts and agreements, as well as arbitration.

Mrs Mould-Iddrisu also said even though the country had had some successes in its arbitration cases abroad, it was increasingly becoming very expensive to pay some of those foreign arbitrators.

She said it was very important for the AG's department to equip and build the capacity of the State Attorneys to be able to handle some of the international transactions and mediation issues at the least cost to the government.

Mrs Mould-Iddrisu also announced government directives to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

She said all contracts or agreements to be entered into by these state institutions should first be sent to the AG's department for due-diligence before approval.

She said the AG is the chief legal adviser to the government and the only person mandated by law to look into all government contracts and agreements.

She said the problems that government had faced over the years were that there were lawyers in some of the MDAs who did not report to the AG and had offered advise some of the MDAs which had landed them in serious problems.

Mr Moe Alramahi, Department of Law, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, and a Resource Person for the course, said for the next five days participants would be taken through thirteen crucial topics which would go a long way to enhance their knowledge on contracts and mediation.

He said the participants would also undertake comparative study of several key issues such bas commercial law, international contracts and arbitration.