Legal Profession, Courts Must Measure Up to Required Standard All Time – Osinbajo

– Osinbajo proffers some solutions to the problem facing the legal profession

– He says whether they sit at the Bar or on the Bench, they should be mindful that they bear the responsibility for a fair and just society.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the practice of legal profession and the courts must always measure up to the moral, ethical and statutory standards they subscribed to.

He therefore called for the adoption of a set of reforms hinged on reclaiming the traditions of virtuous ethics and entrenching personal and corporate integrity.

Osinbajo made the call as part of solutions proffered to the numerous challenges facing the legal profession in the country.

The Vice President in his address to an audience at the Body of Bencher Award Night held at the National Judicial Institute in Abuja said these are some of the requisites for addressing the many challenges facing the legal profession and they will go a long way in solving the problems if adopted.

While describing the weaknesses recently exposed in the legal profession as disturbing, Osinbajo said they have at the same time provided great opportunity for deep introspection and self-assessment.

He also noted that this is an opportunity for reform and reclaim that tradition of virtuous ethics; a tradition of moral inquiry and doggedness in the dispassionate and impartial application of law no matter whose ox is gored.

He also stressed that whether they legal practitoners sit at the Bar or on the Bench, they bear the responsibility for a fair and just society; a free, fair and impartial justice system that ushers in progressive reforms in governance and protects the social structure of the nation.

Explaining what he meant by the responsility expected of the legal practitioners, the vice president said it is a free, fair and impartial justice system that ushers in progressive reforms in governance and protects the social structure of the nation.

He therefore called on them to be ethical in the profession as they owe the young and aspiring lawyers the duty to set the ground rules right and to lead by example.

“We also, as custodians of the law, owe our nation, at the very least, the duty to ensure the proper functioning of the justice system. Our professional practice and the courts must always measure up to the moral, ethical and statutory standards we subscribed to,” he added.