Develop strong negotiation, mediation skills to help in dispute resolution - Mould-Iddrisu urges lawyers
A former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, has urged lawyers to strive to develop strong negotiation and mediation skills to help in resolving, especially, family disputes.
“Family disputes are not always settled by court judgments but are resolved mainly by carefully negotiated settlements.
Lawyers must have such essential skills to help in this regard,” she stressed.
She said law is about the people and that lawyers must learn to manage themselves in that environment by putting the people first and helping them to resolve family disputes amicably through negotiation and mediation.
She entreated lawyers to continue to develop the jurisprudence of Ghana in their professional practice, saying “the law is not just a body of rules, it is alive in us and shapes us as well as the nation”.
Public lecture
Mrs Mould-Iddrisu, who is also a member of the Council of State, made the remarks while delivering a public lecture as part of the 66th Students Representative Council (SRC) week celebration of the Ghana School of Law at the Faculty of Law, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) last Wednesday, March 25, 2026.
Students
It was on the theme: “When the law is silent: Judicial innovation and legal practice in Ghana’s family and succession law”.
Daddy Lumba’s case
Making reference to the family dispute of celebrated Ghanaian music icon, the late Charles Kwadwo Fosuh, popularly known as Daddy Lumba, she stressed that the case highlighted a persistent challenge in Ghanaian family law and coexistence of customary marriages, saying “PNDC Law III does not clarify such a situation”.
She said the bone of contention was who had control over the body to pave the way for his burial.
“Once the family was able to state that they are the rightful people and will decide where he will be buried, which was eventually settled by the court, then they moved on to who is the legally recognised spouse”, she stated.
Gap
Mrs Mould-Iddrisu said the most important lesson from the Daddy Lumba case was for lawyers to learn from the key outcomes and not the thriller aspect of it, especially which legal framework controls what in such a circumstance.
“What is the gap between the law and the social reality on the ground?
It reveals quite clearly that our law does not fully reflect the complexity of today’s Ghanaian family where a husband and wife are a unit,” she said.
“So, Daddy Lumba’s case taught us several critical lessons. Documentation matters as intestacy magnifies conflict.
It is, therefore, important for people to register their marriages and draw up their wills to do away with disputes after their death,” Mrs Mould-Iddrissu stated.
Marriages, database
A private Legal Practitioner, Dennis Ajei Dwomoh, expressed worry that currently, there is no database on marriages in the country to enable someone to know whether a person is already married or not.
“For instance, if a man marries a woman in Tumu and meets another woman in Kumasi and decides to marry her as well, no amount of investigation will show that the man is already married due to the absence of a database”, he said.
He said once there was no database by the state to search whether a particular man or woman is married, it resulted in several challenges, stressing “it is important for the state to come up with a marriage database”.
