{"id":16712,"date":"2017-11-24T18:25:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T18:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dnllegalandstyle.com\/?p=16712"},"modified":"2017-11-24T18:25:39","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T18:25:39","slug":"grouse-invented-charge-bail-lets-derobe-lawyers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/grouse-invented-charge-bail-lets-derobe-lawyers-2\/","title":{"rendered":"My Grouse: Who Invented ‘Charge and Bail’? Let\u2019s Derobe Some Lawyers!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo matter the economy of the jungle I can NEVER eat grass It\u2019s not pride, it\u2019s just who I am\u201d \u2013 Lion!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

My vent is actually fueled by my passion for the legal profession. I love this profession. I love well groomed lawyers who carry themselves with prestige and candor. The only time I hear people call someone arrogant and it excites me is when they call a lawyer arrogant and I turn to see a well groomed gentleman! That is who we are! Deal with it!<\/p>\n

To the matter that I want to address today, whoever invented this phrase charge and bail? I mean how did it all start? To the extent that people of the world have learnt to equate incompetence with \u201ccharge and bail\u201d And as lawyers we join them to also do. When did going to magistrate court to get a person\u2019s bail become ignoble?<\/p>\n

Walahi ta lahi this thing is paining me gaaaan! Two experiences I want to use to buttress my vent: I met a potential client and while we were discussing he began to tell me his history with court and court practices. Next he went \u201cI didn\u2019t know barrister XYZ was a charge and bail lawyer. He really messed up my life\u2026\u201d<\/em> No matter my effort to explain what charge and bail mean (as if I know self), his mind was made up. Charge and Bail is bad lawyer!<\/p>\n

The issue is not so much \u00a0about the people who do not appreciate the enormous hardwork put into becoming a lawyer as it is about the ones that bring this disrepute to themselves. I mean, LLB and BL are obtained through the same means naw! It is not like there is a lesser exam for qualifying to be charge and bail lawyer. That brings me to the second live case:<\/p>\n

I walked into a Magistrate Court in Lagos and was accosted by this woman and she asked; do you need a lawyer? \u00a0To me, it was a mix of shock and other things, so I asked spontaneously \u201cwhat did you just say? \u00a0And she responded more assertively \u201cdo you need someone to appear for you? Did they arrest your person? My curiosity took over and I said \u201coh yes\u201d, and she said \u201cI can do that for you\u201d and she added \u201cIncluding getting you a surety when the bail is granted\u201d. I asked again my curiosity reaching heights now, \u201cso where is the lawyer, and she gave a grin and said \u201cI am\u201d, I looked at her from top to toe, she was dirty and shabbily dressed on a pair of pants! (Biko have they started allowing female lawyers to wear pants at magi court?) So I asked, \u201cyou? You \u00a0are a lawyer?\u201d I made sure not to hide the disdain looks, (The thing is, I don\u2019t know how to tolerate any excuse for being dirty and shabbily dressed. It need not be expensive!).<\/p>\n

She must have seen a lot of such looks and must have also developed a defence mechanism because if she really saw my looks she pretended well not to have noticed . \u201cYes I am a lawyer, don\u2019t worry, you are in safe hands. \u00a0I have been helping people with their bail since over 10 years. I will make sure I perfect the bail today or at most tomorrow morning. But it would cost you a lot of money. We have to give a lot of people money to facilitate things.\u201d \u00a0I asked \u00a0\u201cso how much are we looking at here?\u201d \u00a0And she goes \u201cmy own is 20k, for the others like police, registrars, magistrate, sureties, \u00a0it is when bail is granted and we know the bail condition.\u201d I probed further, \u201cgive me a rough estimate, how much should we be looking at?\u201d She said \u201c if I have to find sureties you have to pay o. may be like 100k to 150k\u201d and I asked \u201c and your own bill is 20k?\u201d\u00a0 she gave a shrug \u00a0and said \u201cI just want to help you\u201d. \u00a0Indeed! She hasn\u2019t even asked what the nature of the offence was, she doesn\u2019t even know who \u201cmy person\u201d is. All she needed was the fact that I came in at the same time as the prison bus was driving into the court with the accused persons.<\/p>\n

You see, the whole essence of this vent today isn\u2019t about charge and bail as a practice. \u00a0By all means practice as a charge and bail lawyer, it is noble, it is part of a lawyer\u2019s job to bail when the court charges a person. But do you have to reflect everything ignoble? Dressing shabbily, and doing all sorts of illegal stuff? Imagine a lawyer going to the extent of being an agent of institutionalizing bribery and criminality. If Magistrate has given condition for bail, na you suppose bother your head about meeting the condition? You follow them commit the crime? How do you explain helping client to source for \u201cprofessional surety? Is that the price you can place on your LLB and BL certificates? \u00a0And all of \u00a0these in the name of survival?<\/p>\n

Mbok let me leave it here. I am having headache.<\/p>\n

My Grouse \u2013 venting my frustrations!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo matter the economy of the jungle I can NEVER eat grass It\u2019s not pride, it\u2019s just who I am\u201d \u2013 Lion! My vent is actually fueled by my passion for the legal profession. I love this profession. I love well groomed lawyers who carry themselves with prestige and candor. The only time I hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":16713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-my-grouse"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t