The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) says the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) should have exhausted all the legal processes before resorting to the court of public opinion when it disagreed with certain rulings of the court.
According to the Public Relations Officer of GBA, Saviour Kudze, the law allows individuals who do not agree with its rulings to appeal or apply for a review.
Speaking on Newsnight on Joy FM, he explained that since the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agybeng had a legal background, he should have applied the 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 referenced an instance in Dr Stephen Opuni’s case where the Attorney General went to the Court of Appeal after a High Court judge, Justice Kwasi Anokye Gyimah said it would be unfair for him to adopt a proceeding that was “saddled” with numerous allegations, and therefore ruled that the court will no longer rely on records gathered since 2017 and would therefore start afresh.
On the back of this, he said the OSP should have exhausted the law before calling for a press conference.
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.”