Deputy Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Justice Srem-Sai, has rejected the Ghana Bar Association’s (GBA) position that the availability of lawyers should determine whether court proceedings continue during the legal vacation.

His comments follow a letter from the GBA to Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie on Monday, August 10, expressing concern over directives requiring lawyers to appear before Vacation Courts despite having indicated that they would be unavailable.

The Association argued that the legal vacation, which runs from August 1 to September 30, is intended to provide judges, lawyers and judicial staff with a period of respite after the demanding court calendar.

While acknowledging that Vacation Courts may sit to deal with urgent and interlocutory matters, the GBA maintained that the established practice was for such courts not to conduct trials, particularly where counsel was unavailable.

It therefore argued that where a lawyer notifies the court of their inability to appear, the matter should be adjourned.

“Counsels are not under any compulsion whatsoever to appear before a Vacation Court,” the GBA said, insisting that a scheduled matter could not proceed where counsel for either side had indicated an inability to participate during the vacation.

Dr Srem-Sai, however, disagreed with that position, arguing that the authority to determine how court proceedings are conducted rests with the judiciary and not lawyers appearing before the court.

According to him, a lawyer’s primary duty is to their client, and allowing counsel to determine whether proceedings should continue could undermine the court’s responsibility to balance the interests of all parties.

“A lawyer’s primary duty is, in fact, to his client – not to the client of another lawyer,” he said.

He argued that it would therefore be problematic for the availability of one lawyer to become the overriding consideration in determining how justice is administered.

Dr Srem-Sai said the Chief Justice has the administrative authority to determine when and where courts sit during the legal vacation, while individual judges retain the judicial authority to manage proceedings before them.

He nevertheless acknowledged that lawyers who require a break during the vacation may request an accommodation from the court.

According to him, a judge may grant such a request wholly or partially, depending on the circumstances of the case and the interests of justice.

“What a professional lawyer is not entitled to, and cannot do is to, in vacuo, beforehand, declare that he will not attend proceedings at all,” he said.