Attorney General Godfred Dame has said that the need for the professional development of the lawyer to rise to the demands of a virtualised world, cannot be overemphasized.
He said it is clear that by dint of the circumstances in which lawyers find themselves as a global community – a virtualised world – law practice generally has assumed cross-border characteristics.
A virtualised world implies that even a small online business becomes exposed to rules and regulations outside its country’s borders, he said.
He explained that the local jurisdiction in which law is practised is open to the world. African lawyers thus have to be world-class, working as part of an open global community to resolve modern-day disputes, many of which have cross-border elements.
“A poorly trained lawyer becomes not only a danger to his client but the global society in general. If our practice is essentially and unavoidably international or cross- border, then there must be a rethink of the legal framework regulating the practice of lawyers in our respective domestic settings. We must remove the barriers of licensing regimes which constrain the capacity of lawyers to appear in jurisdictions other than where they were trained to practise, if our practice is indeed, international,” Mr Dame said.
He however said he was realistic in this call.
He explains that countries may have different legal systems, different systems for training of lawyers, different licensing regimes and of course, different standards for scrutinising and assessing compliance with rules of professional conduct and ethics. However, international legal practice has shown the way.
“Nations appear before regional courts, international tribunals and arbitration panels constituted to adjudicate cases in accordance with law. The lawyers representing them do not require a specific licensing to appear before such panels. Therefore, it can be done. We can begin with a common understanding to provide for state counsel or lawyers who are constitutionally and statutorily empowered in their respective countries to represent nations in disputes, to be able to, without the inhibition of the requirement for licence to practise, appear freely in domestic courts of other countries when disputes involving the nation occurs.
“For instance, it is incongruous for state counsel to be able to appear before an arbitration panel seated in London or Nairobi without the requirement of a specific licence but the same state counsel cannot appear before the London High Court or the Nairobi High Court to defend his nation in proceedings to enforce the award resulting from the arbitration after the conclusion of the arbitration proceedings, simply because the state counsel is not qualified to practise in either London or Nairobi, as the case may be.
“We ought to begin the process of removing the regulatory barriers to the appearance of lawyers qualified in other jurisdictions in such proceedings. Such an exception will become the fulcrum for the development of a blueprint for a gradual harmonisation of legal training standards and ethics and the removal of regulatory barriers,” Godfred Dame said during the International Bar Association Conference, African Regional Forum lunch, 2024 Thursday, September 19.
