Attorney General Godfred Dame’s recent caution to the public against making “prejudicial” and “unjustified” comments about certain political cases in cases in court, is part of a scheme by the Akufo-Addo government to muzzle Ghanaians, former Attorney General Martin Amidu has said.
In a statement, Mr Amidu also accused the President of using the office of the Attorney General to “weaponise” the criminal justice system against political opponents.
Mr Dame recently issued a statement in which he said: “While respecting the freedom” of every Ghanaian “to comment on any matter including cases pending in court”, his office has noted that “much of the recent commentary on many of the so-called high-profile criminal cases transgress permissible limits of free speech, unduly interferes with the work of state prosecutors performing their constitutional function of prosecuting crime in Ghana and tends to put unnecessary pressure on the courts”.
In the statement, Mr Dame said his office “has observed with serious concern the increased tendency” for various people, “including members of the legal profession of considerable standing, to run extremely prejudicial commentary on cases pending before the courts”.
Mr Dame listed the cases which have been the subject of “unwarranted public commentary” as including “but not limited to: Republic vs. James Gyakye Quayson (who is being prosecuted for perjury, deceit of a public officer and forgery), Republic vs. Dr Stephen Opuni & 2 Others (who are being trialled for causing financial loss of GHS217 million to the state) and Republic vs. Cassiel Ato Forson & 2 Others” (who are also before court for causing financial loss of €2.37 million to the state).
Mr Dame’s indignation followed a recent comment by the Dormaahene, who is also a judge, that the ongoing criminal trial of recently-re-elected Assin North MP Gyakye Quayson, be discontinued.
Mr Dame warned that “no immunity is conferred by a person’s position in parliament” or in “the judiciary” or by virtue of being a “traditional authority” or standing at the “Bar, or any official position, from the consequences of an interference in the administration of justice or an attempt to overreach a judgment to be delivered by the court in any matter”.
Mr Dame added: “The Attorney General’s constitutional responsibility for the ‘initiation and conduct of all prosecutions of criminal offences’, implies a duty to prosecute a crime committed in Ghana, after proper investigations have been conducted, irrespective of the political, race, colour, ethnic, religion, economic or social status of the culprit. State Attorneys assisting the Attorney General in the performance of this hallowed constitutional mandate, operate under extreme pressure and are exposed to severe risks”.
He said: “They have the right to prosecute cases freely in a court of law just as private legal practitioners enjoy a right to defend their clients, free from abuse and attacks on their character”.
Tackling Mr Dame’s press statement in his latest epistle, however, Mr Amidu described the AG’s comments as “suffocatingly oppressive and unbearable”.
He said: “The Attorney General insinuated that legitimate criticisms of the investigatory and prosecutorial functions of his office ‘unduly interferes with the work of State Prosecutors performing their constitutional function of prosecuting crime in Ghana’ without pointing to any provision under the 1992 Constitution which proscribes the sovereign people of Ghana from holding to account state prosecutors who allow themselves to be misused to abuse the very prosecutorial constitutional function they purport to perform in aid of an oppressive Government whose aim is to weaponise the system of criminal justice administration to achieve electoral political objects in an election cycle”.
The former Special Prosecutor added: “One expects the Attorney General to have realised that the ‘members of the legal profession of considerable standing’ he alluded to in his press release have within them men and women who hold convincing considered opinions and disagree professionally and ethically with the weaponisation of the investigation and prosecution of the processes of criminal justice administration under his watch”.
“These ‘members of the legal profession with considerable standing’ include his predecessor Attorneys General from both political divides who have exercised the discretionary power embodied in the concept of nolle prosequi and know better than an advocacy or appeal to the Attorney General or the President as the repository of the executive power to order the entry of a nolle prosequi in a criminal case pending in court cannot be prejudicial to the administration of justice”, he said.
Mr Amidu urged Mr Dame to be independent and impartial in executing his role so as to fritter the “negative perceptions or suspicions that he is being used by the president to weaponise the office of the Attorney General against political opponents”.
Source: classfmonline.com
