Former head of legal affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Abraham Amaliba has tasked the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) to conduct an introspection relative to its non-political status.
Amaliba holds the view that the GBA has increasingly shown political partisanship over the last few years, acting in ways that favour the current government and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He described the annual Bar Conference as a political jamboree for the NPP stating so in the light of president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s use of the 2023 edition of the conference to hit out at president Mahama for recent comments on the judiciary.
“The bar conference has become a political jamboree for the NPP-inclined lawyers and state officials including the president to attack NDC-inclined lawyers and its leadership. The NDC-inclined lawyers pay dues to the Ghana Bar Association.
“The Bar uses the dues to organize the Bar Conference which is a non-political platform…,” he stressed before adding that regrettably the Bar conference has been politicized and that; “the Bar should take the fall for this. The Bar has misconducted itself for far too long in these matters and I don’t want to be charitable at all.”
On Mahama’s critical comments on the judiciary labelling it as partisan and calling for what he called balancing out of members of the bench, Amaliba said; “Mahama used an NDC platform to make comments. Why would bar give Akufo-Addo platform to respond?” he lamented.
The GBA spokesperson who was also speaking on the same programme as Amaliba, Saviour Kudze said the association condemned Akufo-Addo’s political comments at the conference but explained that they could not have known what the president had in his speech.
The two men spoke on Joy FM’s Top Story programmme on September 11, 2023.
Source: ghanaweb.com
