Private legal practitioner Oliver Barker-Vormawor has accused the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) of selective advocacy, arguing that the Association only defends its members when it is politically convenient to do so.
His comments follow a statement issued by the GBA condemning the attempted unlawful arrest of Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for the Manhyia South constituency.
While welcoming the Association’s intervention, Vormawor said the statement stands in sharp contrast to the GBA’s silence during what he described as years of abuse against lawyers and law students.
“For years the Ghana Bar Association forgot I was a lawyer too. I was at the mercy of the regime,” he said, recalling an incident in which he was arrested on his way to court for allegedly failing to observe road markings — on a road, he noted, that had no markings at all.
Vormawor further alleged that when a lawyer came to represent detained persons and was slapped, the GBA not only failed to act but fought against the Regional Bar that spoke up on the matter.
He also cited the treatment of young law students, including Timothy Selikem Korku Donkor and Agaaya Adongo, who he said were manhandled and locked up for showing up at a protest while awaiting their call to the Bar, with no intervention from the association.
According to him, the pattern continued even after some of the affected individuals were formally admitted to the profession. He pointed to the arrest of Ama Governor, who was taken into custody for attending a protest shortly after her call to the Bar.
“When Ama Governor was arrested after she was called to the Bar for attending a protest, the GBA looked away. She was either not enough of a lawyer or it was the wrong era,” he said.
Vormawor argued that such inconsistencies are the reason many people accuse the GBA of partisanship, suggesting that the association’s willingness to speak out appears to follow an eight-year political cycle.
“So yes, I like the new-found voice of the GBA,” he said. “I only wish it didn’t lose it ever so often in eight-year cycles.”
By Gifty Boateng