REFLECTIONS

I chose the topic of cross border provision of legal services and legal education within the ECOWAS region because whilst I think some form of codification for legal professions across West Africa would significantly evolve the profession as well make it harder for corrupt professionals to find work, I believe the process of legal education of Member States need to be revised as a whole. I chose a blog post format because it would offer a less formal medium to relay any first-hand information I gathered for the purposes of assessing the reasons behind the lack of integration . For example, the use of informal interviews with practicing lawyers in Ghana to give a qualified answer to the type of landscape ECOWAS legal students and professionals find themselves in.

 I predicted that I would potentially run into a lack of sources to pull from as cross border provision of legal services is not a consistent occurrence within the ECOWAS region. Challenges I predicted included but were not limited to difficulty in finding national codes of practice for lawyers from different Member States, finding instances of actual cross border legal service provision and arguing why the ECOWAS region does not necessarily need to take after other free trade economic areas in order to promote uniformity or make progress towards political and economic integration. I wanted to argue that a more contextualized approach may be suited. For example, taking advantage of existing practices within the profession and codifying them as terms of procedure applicable to all lawyers when engaging with the professional activity within the region. Or like Ankomah argued the introduction of a mutual reciprocity treaty aiming to integrate legal systems within ECOWAS. 

When I first began to gather my research I started with a comparison of the ECOWAS and the EU systems in order to identify similarities and investigate the general idea that the ECOWAS should apply the same processes and mechanisms as other FTAs. From there, in order to assess the suitability of these mechanisms I began to look up papers by local lawyers such as Ace Ankomah’s paper on integration through legal change in the ECOWAS region. Papers like this helped me identify situations were simply mimicking  EU mechanisms were not enough and that the region would require a context-specific approach. Though most critics like Ace welcome the adoption of EU principles like direct effect and Community law supremacy, I struggle to find it suitable when faced with the current political, social climate of the bloc, the lack of a centralised currency, the tension between francophone and anglophone member states as well as the general track record of treatment of Community Law. I came to the conclusion that having community law be put at the top of a hierarchy of sources of law, may be problematic as treatment of it differs from state to state. The lack of serious interaction or integration between legal professions within Member States cannot be solved with forcing Member states to uphold Community law before their own but rather in opening up the legal profession across the area. By imposing standardization, encouraging law students to seek the best possible legal education, I believe that profession will then have a reason to teach or study Community law further developing it by shaping practices surrounding it encouraging cross border activity and creating more instances for interaction between Member States. 

As I began to write my essay, I ran into issues with the length and the amount of content I should add. There are several reasons why the ECOWAS region has not made progress with legal integration. Finding the ones which I thought would justify why I disagreed with the supremacy of Community Law was difficult. However, by drawing on the process of legal education as an avenue for change and integration, I argued that enacting change within the actual profession and its certificate processes would create more competition and interaction between Member States legal systems eventually pushing cross border economic activity. For example, subsidized law school fees for ECOWAS citizens. Despite this, general doubts surfaced regarding the strength of my argument and the difficulty in reconciling the aim of integration without emphasizing a hierarchy to the sources of law in the region, however from speaking to professionals within the field, there is a real demand for change in the way countries conduct legal education. Writing the essay I realised though the substantive issue of what law is binding is important, it would not greatly impact legal professions within the region where Community law is rarely covered in national law schools. Basically, without the facilitation of cross border movement by lawyers or legal students, how can the region expect to foster legal integration without actual physical integration of the legal systems as opposed to leaving integration up to national courts that can be said to have the discretion when applying the principle of Community law supremacy. 

My immediate insights after was that I should have limited my essay question to reasons for opening up legal education within the ECOWAS community as 1500 words are not enough to cover in-depth the various reasons why cross border legal service provision rarely occurs within the region or the general lack of legal integration. However, I believe that analysing the different reasons behind the lack of integration enabled me to assess the legal landscape. This helped me reach a conclusion on a quicker easier route that member States can pursue in order to encourage cross border activity and the provision of legal services instead of a complete overhaul in the ECOWAS legal system and values. I believe that as long as I have substantiated my claims and not misunderstood any principles of law, this whole exercise has been useful for me to see how I can apply the range of topics taught within the GLS module such as the profession of lawyers, ethics and the methods of legal integration to a familiar political, social and economic context in order to improve my understanding of the topic. I found the lack of resources problematic as well as my choice of format for this piece of work as it meant I would have needed to put sufficient time aside to edit both my blog post and the text document submitted onto my Canvas page. In retrospect, I believe that I managed to provide a snapshot analysis of the circumstances within the region. If I were to re-attempt this POW, I would spend more time exploring alternative ways of integration and perhaps sustained further comparison between the ECOWAS region and other treaty blocs in order to suggest a better path to integration.