The Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP), according to the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), ought to have followed all legal avenues before going to the court of public opinion if it didn’t agree with specific court decisions.
The GBA’s Public Relations Officer, Saviour Kudze, claims that the law permits anyone who disagrees with a decision to file an appeal or request a reconsideration.
In an interview on Joy FM’s Newsnight, he clarified that Kissi Agybeng, the Special Prosecutor, ought to have followed the law because of her background in law.
“Well, the position we [GBA] have is that his approach is not the most appropriate. He is a seasoned lawyer, he has gone to court and the court of first instance had delivered decision not in his favour.
“I would have expected him to exhaust the legal process maybe by filing an appeal against the decision of the court of first instance even up to the Supreme Court and even invoke the review jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.”
Mr. Kudze cited a case involving Dr. Stephen Opuni in which the Attorney General filed a case in the Court of Appeal after Justice Kwasi Anokye Gyimah, a High Court judge, declared that it would be unjust for him to take up a proceeding that was “saddled” with multiple allegations. As a result, the court decided to begin anew and would no longer rely on records gathered since 2017.
In light of this, he argued the OSP ought to have waited to call a press conference until after all legal options had been exhausted.
He continued “Now the OSP may have powers but in enforcing those powers he must also observe procedures. For instance, if you are an employee of an organization and the organization has a handbook or manual that details step-by-step procedures to be observed before dismissing a staff and there is evidence that the staff has misconducted himself and yet they did not follow the procedure before dismissing him, when that dismissal gets to court- the case will go against the organization. So I think that he should have exhausted the legal process before coming out.
“Even if the allegation is that judges have ganged up against his office, once he has evidence, he could have had a process to lead this evidence in the superior court for the court to determine.”