The immediate past president of the Liberia National Bar Association, Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe, has called on the body’s newly instated regime to build on the legacy left behind for the common good of the organization.
He said the LNBA new leadership was elected based on the doctrine of continuity, and as such, he has no doubt that the legacy left behind will be built upon for the good of the lawyering profession in the country.
Gongloe made the comments in his final and hand over note as former President of the Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA) to the new leadership Friday, Jan. 28.
His 3-years tenure ended last November 2021, in accordance with the constitution upon which an election was held and won by Gongloe’s Vice President, Sylvester Dorbor Rennie.
The Friday event marked the smooth handing over of the gavel of authority of the LNBA to a new corps of elected officers.
He said such an event is consistent with the constitution and by-laws of the LNBA which requires the President of the LNBA to serve one term of three years without a right of re-election.
Gongloe believes the term restriction is only limited to the President of the LNBA and not the Vice President and other officers of the LNBA and the fact that the President-Elect of the LNBA was his vice president for three years explains this point.
“I am very happy that on this occasion, I am turning over the gavel of authority to my vice president. He and the treasurer-elect were elected along with me a little over three years ago in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County,” he recalled.
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Gongloe continued: “They both campaigned on the slogan of continuity of the Gongloe administration and won their opponents with convincing votes. The President-elect, the treasurer-elect and the former secretary general and I worked together very closely as a team. Not once, did the president-elect refuse to carry out any assignment, even on short notice.”
He pointed out that he and his vice president now President of the Bar, will be an excellent president of the LNBA on grounds that he knows the vice president and the secretary general very well; hence, he hoped that the association will enjoy the same cooperation from them.
“We raised the bar of the Liberian National Bar to a higher level. Today, the name of the LNBA is known in every household of the Republic of Liberia, from Cape Mount to Cape Palmas, from Mount Nimba to the Putu Mountain and from the St. Paul River in Montserrado County to the Cavalla River in Maryland County,” Gongloe boasted.
He then recounted achievements made under his regime: “We improved the standard of the legal profession by entering into a memorandum of understanding with the Liberia Revenue Authority by which the LRA delegated its licensing authority to the LNBA, retaining its duty to collect professional license fees from members of the LNBA.”
Gongloe said, as a result, every Liberian lawyer must fill an application form in order to be licensed as a lawyer, indicating whether he/she is a natural-born Liberian or naturalized and if naturalized showing same by attachment of a copy of the certificate of naturalization.
“The form also requires an applicant to state whether he/she has acquired ten credits of continuing legal education (CLE) and has paid all accrued bar dues and levies. With the introduction of the licensing system, each lawyer in Liberia has a unique license number beginning with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as number one,” he lamented.
Gongloe stressed that the issuance of licenses to members of the LNBA has helped the bar to get rid of quacks who, without any training in the law were practicing law in the various lower courts of Liberia, adding “The licensing system has also helped the LNBA to raise more money.”https://thenewdawnliberia.com/liberia-national-bar-elects-new-president/
