 “Most grateful”, “as the court pleases”, “much obliged, Your Lordship,” says the lawyer at the end of a case in court.
Lawyers use this phrase even when a judge has ruled against them. Why because respect for the Bench or judge must be upheld at all times no matter how much one vehemently disagrees with the decision made. With this practice, lawyers help keep decorum in the courtroom while maintaining the sacredness of the seat of justice. To do otherwise would turn the courtroom into a theatre of violent vituperations and possibly physical violence between all persons involved. But a lawyer exits the courtroom graciously and calmly to plot how to overturn the Ruling or judgment.
One can juxtapose the above analogy with the political arena. In the political arena, we have biased judges making up the Bench. These biased ‘judges’ are your own party supporters and the opposition. There are also those who owe no allegiance to any particular party but a rule or ‘pass their judgment’ or in other words ‘cast their vote’ in favor of the most persuasive argument.
The ‘lawyer president’ has had the opportunity to tout how well his witnesses (ministers) did or are doing in the witness box. That is the best that ‘lawyer president’ can do. After that, he must leave his case to the jury and Bench (that is the general public and voters who make up the judges or Bench in politics to have their own opinion).Â
In Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region which doubles as the stronghold of the ruling New Patriotic Party, President Akufo Addo, one of Ghana’s finest lawyers spoke in an ‘unlawyerly’ manner when after making his submissions he concluded, with words loosely translated, that “those not speaking favorably of good things about him were going to be individually shamed or disgraced”.
The lawyer was speaking to the ‘Bench’ and no matter how you disagree with the Bench, you do not speak back in such a manner.
The president forgot his legal training but in the heat of the moment, one can make a mistake. The president the lawyer made an inadvertent comment and the lawyer in him should prompt him to apologize to the Bench, that is the public, for these ‘unlawyerly’ comments at the next ‘sitting of the Court’, which is at the next most apt opportunity.
Lawyer Akufo Addo, in the words of Joe Lartey; “over to you”. Your junior “lawyers” (young politicians) are still learning at your feet and they are watching…the Bench who you wooed in the past with your eloquent and persuasive submissions are awaiting your delivery the next time.
Lawyers, remember at all times that, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof”.
