Superlaw Ghana

Open Letter to Noah E. Tetteh, President of the Young Lawyers Forum

Dear Noah E. Tetteh:

Are young lawyers being short-changed by the GBA Conference fees?

The Ghana Bar Association’s 2026 Annual Conference fees are raising serious questions, particularly for young lawyers.

For lawyers with 1–4 years at the Bar, the registration fee is:

In-person: GH¢3,000
Virtual: GH¢3,000

The fee is exactly the same. Yet for lawyers with 10+ years at the Bar, the structure is different:

In-person: GH¢4,000
Virtual: GH¢3,000

This raises a very simple question: Why does virtual participation cost the same GH¢3,000 for a young lawyer as physical attendance?

A lawyer attending physically presumably incurs costs associated with venue, meals, logistics, conference facilities, and other physical arrangements.

A lawyer attending virtually is sitting at home or in their office. So what exactly accounts for the GH¢3,000 virtual registration fee?

And more importantly, why is there no discounted virtual rate for lawyers with 1–4 years at the Bar?

Young lawyers are often the members of the profession least able to absorb a GH¢3,000 conference fee. Many are still building their practices, paying chambers expenses, repaying educational costs and trying to establish themselves professionally.

Yet under this fee structure, a young lawyer who chooses the cheaper-to-organise virtual option pays the same registration fee as one who attends physically.

That does not appear to recognise the economic realities facing young lawyers.

Noah, as President of the Young Lawyers Forum, I think these are questions you should be asking publicly on behalf of the young lawyers you represent.

Is this pricing reasonable?

What costs justify charging GH¢3,000 for virtual participation?

Why is there no preferential virtual rate for young lawyers?

And perhaps most importantly: Were young lawyers consulted before these fees were determined?

The Young Lawyers Forum should be prepared to speak when the interests of young lawyers appear to be overlooked.

This is not necessarily an argument against the conference or against paying reasonable registration fees. It is an argument for transparency, proportionality, and fairness.

Two names in a £13.8 MILLION UK drug case have caught Ghana’s attention. 🇬🇭🇬🇧

Ryan Boachie, 32, and Carsten Kyei, 21, are among 11 people convicted in Britain after police seized 460kg of cannabis worth an estimated £13.8 million.

The gang allegedly flew from Thailand, travelled through Paris and arrived in Birmingham with 22 suitcases packed with cannabis.

Each person reportedly had two suitcases containing about 20kg of cannabis.

WHY WAS THE JUDGE SO LENIENT? OR WAS THE CHARGE THE REAL PROBLEM?

A 22-year-old fisherman allegedly punched a man twice, pulled out a pair of scissors and stabbed him in the arm, back and head.

He pleaded guilty to causing harm and was sentenced to three months.But here is the bigger question:

Why wasn't he charged with causing harm by the use of an offensive weapon?

The scissors were allegedly used to stab the victim multiple times.

The charge matters because the punishment that follows depends on the offence charged.

Causing harm is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 10 years.

Causing harm by the use of an offensive weapon is a felony punishable by up to life imprisonment.

So was the judge really being lenient?

Or was the real issue the charge that was brought before the court?

What do you think?

The GBA 2026 Conference fees are raising eyebrows.
For lawyers with 1–4 years at the Bar:

In-person: GH¢3,000
Virtual: GH¢3,000

Same fee.

For 10+ years:

In-person: GH¢4,000
Virtual: GH¢3,000

So what exactly is the virtual participant paying for?

If you’re attending from your office or home, why is your registration fee the same or nearly the same as someone attending physically? Is this pricing reasonable?

Lawyers, what do you think?

A routine anti-poaching patrol at Ghana’s Kakum Forest Reserve has ended in tragedy after a 58-year-old wildlife resource guard was allegedly shot and killed by a suspected poacher.

Richard Otwey, who was attached to the Kakum Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, was reportedly on patrol with two other guards when they encountered two men allegedly hunting inside the protected forest.

According to preliminary police investigations, the guards attempted to arrest the men.

Then, tragedy struck.

Police say Bukari Abudu allegedly pulled out a single-barrel gun and shot Richard Otwey in the chest, killing him instantly.

The incident occurred on Saturday, August 22, 2026, at the Assin Kruwa portion of the reserve.

The two suspects reportedly fled into the forest after the shooting. The patrol team pursued them and managed to arrest John Mensah.

Bukari Abudu remains at large, with police reportedly continuing efforts to apprehend him.

Investigators recovered a spent cartridge, footprints and a single-barrel gun from the scene.

Richard Otwey's body was later conveyed to the Abura Dunkwa Government Hospital morgue for preservation and further examination.

The Central North Regional Crime Officer, Chief Superintendent Edmund Agyemang Badu, has confirmed the incident.

The High Court has given former Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) Chief Executive Officer, Solomon Asamoah, and former GIIF Board Chairman, Prof. Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, until September 23, 2026, to file their respective defences in the ongoing Sky Train case.

The latest extension is the third time the court has granted the two accused persons additional time to prepare their defences after dismissing their submissions of no case.

The case concerns an alleged US$2 million financial loss to the state arising from payment made by GIIF in 2019 towards an equity stake in the company behind the proposed Ghana Sky Train project that never took off.

The prosecution alleges that the payment was made without the requisite board approval for a project that ultimately failed to materialise, resulting in the dissipation of public funds.

The accused persons had previously argued that the prosecution had failed to establish sufficient evidence to require them to open their defence, but the trial court rejected that submission.

In a Facebook post on Monday, August 24, Deputy Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Justice Srem-Sai, said the High Court had once again granted the accused persons more time to file their defences.

The latest order comes as the Supreme Court is set to hear an interlocutory injunction application filed by Mr Asamoah's lawyers on Thursday, August 27.

The application seeks to halt proceedings at the lower court pending a determination of a separate application seeking to quash the trial court’s decision dismissing his submission of no case.

The Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170) has fundamentally changed the structure of professional legal training in Ghana. But one question deserves serious attention:

Why is Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) treated as a Pre-Bar/LLB subject when it is, in reality, a core professional skill for practising lawyers? Does placing ADR before professional training risk reducing it to an academic subject rather than a practical legal skill? And what does this mean for Ghanaian lawyers competing in an increasingly sophisticated regional and international dispute-resolution market?

Bakhita Mawuli Koblavie, Esq. examines the issue and makes the case for a rethink of where ADR belongs in Ghana’s legal education system.

👇 READ THE FULL ARTICLE — and tell us: Should ADR be part of professional legal training?

The Future of Dispute Resolution in Ghana and Africa: Why ADR Belongs at the Bar, Not the Pre-Bar or LLB. - Bakhita Mawuli Koblavie, Esq. “Nunya, adidoe, asi metunɛ o;” literally translated, “Knowledge is like a baobab tree; no single pair of arms can embrace it. (Ewe proverb) Meaning ‘no single person is a repository of all wisdom’ Introduction The Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170) decentra...