News
GLC Bill: Why Are You Bothered If We’re Joking? – Dafeamekpor Fires Back at Sam Okudzeto
The Member of Parliament for South Dayi Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor has questioned why former President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), Sam Okudzeto, will be bothered with the Private Member’s Bill to amend the Legal Professions Act, 1960, Act 32 if he believes the MPs involved are ‘jokers’.
The MP in an interview on JoyNews Prime indicated Mr Okudzeto’s comments are uninformed.
“Clearly he lacks understanding of the workings of parliament. Because for him to say, two members of parliament, properly so-called, taking advantage of the provisions in the law, in the constitution and statutes to initiate a private members bill to him amounts to a joke, then the person who is joking in this matter is him, not the two of us.”
He added that “If he thinks the matter is a joke, then he shouldn’t be perturbed…But clearly, he’s bothered.”
Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, and Francis-Xavier Sosu, Madina MP through the Private Member’s Bill, is trying to realign “the functions of the GLC and to provide for reforms in legal education such that accredited faculties of law with the requisite facilities would be licensed to run professional law courses, provide for discipline of lawyers and related matters to give effect to Article 37(1) of the 1992 constitution.”
They are also seeking to have the Chief Justice and other Justices of the Supreme Court taken off the Board of the GLC.
Speaking on Asaase Radio in reaction, Sam Okudzeto said the duo clearly does not understand the law.
“If they are lawyers, then their understanding of the law leaves a lot of question. I have been a member of the disciplinary committee for many years; I am still there… if I tell you the number of complaints that keep coming there…
“So I don’t see how the qualified lawyer is going to appear before the court, and you say that those for who we are going to appear before do not have any power of control over their training or education.
“It’s a joke. I must confess that they are jokers, and I don’t know who they are, and I don’t want to know who they are,” he said.
