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The founder and leader of the Lighthouse Group of Churches, Bishop Dag Heward-Mills has allegedly thrown shades the way of the counsel for six former bishops of the Lighthouse church.
During a sermon in his church, Dag Heward-Mills insinuated that the lawyer did not do due diligence when the bishops approached him to represent them in court over the church’s refusal to pay their SSNIT contributions despite their years of hard work.
In a video posted on social media by investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure, Bishop Dag can be heard saying that it is only a lawyer who is a ruthless criminal that will accept cases that are unworthy to be argued in court.
“If you are a lawyer and you are a ruthless criminal, people will come to you with cases that nobody will even touch. 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 pension. When we went abroad, we worked so hard but when we came back, we were maltreated. You will have ruthless lawyers who have no scruples who will do anything for money,” he said.
Bishop Dag Heward-Mills further stated that morally upright lawyers make sure to get evidence to prove that their clients are right or wrong before deciding to carry on with their cases.
“The practise changes where a lawyer who has morals will ask you if can you bring evidence of not being paid. You don’t have any documents, just a pack of lies. You say these people, they don’t like media so we sue them and they will come and settle. They are called ambulance lawyers. The practice of law falls into the hands of an extortioner and the extortioner will tell you to bring $12 million. When the law falls into the hand of fraudsters and criminals and they practice, then the practice of law changes,” he added.
Background
In 2021, six former bishops of the Lighthouse Chapel sued the church for failing to pay their pension contribution for the number of years they worked for the church as pastors and missionaries.
The ex-bishops are Bishop Larry Odonkor, Bishop Oko Mensah, Rev. Edward Laryea, Pastor Seth Duncan, Pastor Edem Amankwah and Pastor Faith Makafui Fiakojo.
On 3rd August 2021 which was the last adjourned date of the trial, the presiding Judge Justice Frank Aboagye Rockson repeated an earlier suggestion he had made to the parties to settle the matter amicably.
Counsel for LCI, Rodney Heward-Mills dropped the bombshell which left the court in shock. He revealed that some eminent clergymen had earlier approached both parties to settle the matter out of court and that during the settlement talks the ex-pastors demanded a whopping sum of US$ 12 million as a settlement from the church and took an entrenched position on their demand. He continued that the senior clergymen found the demand so outrageous that they abandoned any hope of settling the matter.
