Bishop Dag Heward-Mills’ criticism of lawyers and accountants in a recent sermon has sparked mixed reactions, with some people saying that his comments put the two professions in a bad light while others say he hit the nail right on the head.
According to the revered man of God, when the practice of law and delivery of justice falls in the hands of criminally-minded people it creates chaos for the society.
“The law is powerful but it is in whose hands it falls. If the practice of law falls into the hands of fraudsters and criminals, then the practice of law which is a noble profession changes,” Bishop Heward-Mills lamented.
He cited a referred to a case in which some young people approached a lawyer with a terrible case without any reasonable evidence, but for the love of money, instead of advising the would-be clients to do the right thing, the lawyer accepted to handle the cases in a bid to extort money from vulnerable people.
“If you are a lawyer and you are a ruthless criminal, people will come to you with cases that nobody would even touch.
“Like maybe you can have some young men will come to you and say we’ve been cheated at our workplace. We worked for so long and we were treated badly. They didn’t pay our SSNIT, they didn’t pay our pension. They didn’t look after us. When we went abroad, we worked so hard and when we came back, we were maltreated. Look at my age, I’m 45 years old, I have nothing.
“And you have ruthless lawyers who have no scruples; they will do anything for money. A lawyer who has morals will ask you; when you worked you were not paid, can you bring the evidence or some documents? You don’t have any documents, just a pack of lies and you say these people this is how they are. They don’t want media they don’t want this thing; we’ll sue them and they will come and sit down and settle. They are called ambulance lawyers,” the bishop said amid loud cheers in a video that has been making the rounds online.
He went further to tell a tale involving a man who was on the verge of dying and demanded the presence of his lawyer and his accountant. When they both arrived, he asked that the lawyer stand on his right side while the accountant stand on the left side. The man then said “I want to die in the middle of two thieves” before breathing his last breath.
Although Bishop Heward-Mills did not attribute his statements to anyone, they have fueled suspicions that he might be alluding to the court case between his church, Lighthouse Chapel International and some former pastors who have gone to court seeking some relief, claiming to have been cheated and treated unfairly.