Law Day is celebrated every year on May 3, but this year’s event got disorganized right in the presence of its organizers, the Liberia National Bar Association (LNBA), the guest speaker, the Ghana Ambassador, and the Administrator of the Judiciary, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The Law Day program started with parade by members of the Liberian National Bar Association from the ELWA Junction, and ended at the Paynesville Town Hall where the indoor program had been planned for, but apparently, the attitude of lawyers caused the meaning of the day not to be achieved.
As if lawyers planned to disturb their own program, they continuously caused distractions without respect to the presence of their invited guests, as the LNBA president, Sylvester Rennie, and Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe yelled continuously, “Have it quiet colleagues,” but it was like wasting water on a duck’s back.
This uncontrolled noise continued in segments but landed directly at Cllr. Emmanuel Turay and Cllr. Nya Gbaintor, who were both pointed to out of the crowd of noisemakers, apparently because of the extent to which their commotion escalated.
Cllr. Gbaintor explained that the disorder between him and Cllr. Turay came about when the proxy for Cllr. Jallah Barbu was reading like an elementary student while delivering the keynote address.
Following his comment, Cllr. Turay told him not to criticize his colleague, a remark that got him angry, and he inquired from Cllr. Turay why he should not criticize someone who is not reading like a lawyer, but Cllr. Turay told him to shut up.
It was following this exchange that the entire hall turned noisy for about 15 minutes, prompting the keynote speaker to pause in speech in order to have the attention of the audience, even though that also helped to intensify the noise.
Due to the continual disturbance, the police was instructed to escort Cllr. Turay outside and he left the hall along with some senior lawyers while Cllr. Gbaintor refused to go outside, only changing his seat.
The departure of the lawyers did not calm the noise, as the hall remained an outlaw classroom until the end of the program.
This Cllr. Gongloe did not allow slide, as he told his colleagues that they should be respecters of law as it is written at the back of their T-shirts, ‘Adherence to the Rule of Law’.
Cllr. Gongloe described it as disgraceful to them as professional people to whom people look up to be respecters of what they are preaching because even as the program was ongoing, lawyers were still walking in and out of the hall in gross disregard of their guests.
