[ 2016-11-23 ]

Mahama's conduct after court order reason why we need a new Prez - Amidu
The incumbent Government of our dear country which
is enjoined to respect and uphold the fundamental
human rights and freedoms of all persons in Ghana
has demonstrated that it cannot do so and that it
is constitutionally incompetent to be voted for at
the 7th December 2016 Presidential elections.

I exercised a fundamental constitutional right as
a plaintiff/applicant to apply to the Supreme
Court for leave to examine orally on oath the
unconstitutional “lootee”
(Woyome/Austro-Invest) ordered to refund GHC51,
283, 483. 59 to the Republic. The looter (the
incumbent Government) who had been declared to
have unconstitutionally looted the monies for the
“lootee” (now styling itself as a judgment
creditor for the money it looted for the lootee)
opposed my application with the support of the
lootees both by affidavit.

In spite of the concerted argument of both the
looter Government and unconstitutional lootee (now
styled judgment debtor), the Supreme Court has
granted my application to examine the
lootee/unconstitutional judgment debtor on 24th
November 2016.

Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision
the lootee/judgment debtor launched a campaign of
vilification against my person, and the Supreme
Court as an institution – in words better left
unprinted – to the electronic and print media in
the forecourt and outside the Court premises, at
press conferences and in interviews. The outbursts
of a losing party may be ignored as tension
relieving therapy for his wounded ego, emotions,
and mental exhaustion.

But then the President of the Republic of Ghana,
who has sworn a constitutional oath of office to
uphold and defend the Constitution of Ghana as by
law established, grants an interview to the press
after the decision of the Court on the same day.
Moreover, the President is shown on television
that night castigating the decision of the Supreme
Court he has sworn to defend and uphold.

At the same time and in his interview, the
President takes an intimidating stand against the
beneficiary of the decision and order of the Court
by charging him with spreading falsehoods. The
President then turns himself into a Supreme Judge
by defending his Attorney General who had just
lost the application at Court.

Is this then not a President (with the Executive
Authority including all policing powers) who is
intimidating me simply for exercising my
constitutional right to access to justice before
the Supreme Court?

The conduct of the President convinces me as a
senior and foundation member of the governing NDC,
that he would do everything in his power to ensure
that the examination orally on oath of the lootee
for whom his Government looted the public purse,
may not come on 24th November 2016. Mark my words.


The President can further subvert the cause of
justice so that the people of Ghana do not hear
the truth about the loot of the public purse he
led until after the elections on 7th December
2016. We need patriotic public pressure and
opinion to dissuade such intentions.

Once the President of the Republic had
unconstitutionally castigated and questioned the
independence of the judiciary in granting my
application, and after charging me with falsehood,
he then let loose his attack dogs.

Dominic Ayine, the Deputy Minister for Justice who
represented the Government in the Supreme Court
and opposed my application, and others, went
public with the electronic and print media to
mount unconstitutional and contumacious attacks
and insults on the Court decision and on my person
for daring to access the Court.

The Deputy Minister for Justice, Dominic Ayine,
who appeared for the Attorney-General and argued
against my application, was and is an officer of
the Court.

Surely, as one who is properly trained and who has
practiced under competent seniors since his call
to the Bar, he would have known that as an officer
of the Court it is unethical to resort to the
press to criticize a Court decision one has argued
and lost.

The ethical practice is to go on an appeal or
apply for a review of the decision should those
options be open, or to shut up. It is scandalous
and a bad example for a Deputy Minister of Justice
who has also sworn to uphold the Constitution to
take a cue from his President and castigate the
Court and its decision, including the beneficiary
of the decision.

Since when did it become the ethical practice of
any responsible and respected lawyer committed to
the rule of law, independence of the judiciary,
the independence of the legal profession,
constitutionalism and democracy to resort to the
print and electronic media as the medium of
arguing an appeal or review of the decision of a
Court of law he has lost?

Dominic Ayine, the Deputy Minister for Justice,
instead of exercising a right to review of the
Court decision, calls me a liar in the media. (The
shallow-educated Minister of Communications who
struggled to pass his bachelor of medicine and
surgery degree exams and whose practice of
medicine since graduating has been as Deputy
Minister and later Minister for Communications
called me by the same Government-rehearsed phrase
the previous Saturday and got a fitting
response).

Dominic Ayine charges me with lying on oath
because of my affidavit in support of my
application with his stated accusation: “So he
is the one who is lying on oath to achieve his
evil political agenda of tarnishing the image of
his successor in office.” But the statement
exposes Ayine’s lack of good lawyering skills
and raises the question of whether he studied
under any eminent and seasoned senior before his
appointment as Deputy Minister for Justice.

Let us examine what happened. Martin Amidu deposes
to an affidavit which Ayine thinks constitutes
perjury. The Attorney General who is Ayine’s one
year senior at the Bar deposes to an affidavit in
person in opposition together with a con cheque
and receipt. Ayine’s Attorney General’s
affidavit was served on me only in the Court room,
which led me to tell the Court that I was ambushed
with the affidavit in Court.

In my experience one does such things to compel
the other party to ask for an adjournment to study
the affidavits served in Court. The Court offered
me an adjournment but I refused and deprived the
Government of its suspected intention to postpone
the hearing to after 7th December 2016. Then
Ayine’s inexperience became manifest and
visible.

Instead of Ayine insisting to cross-examine me
upon my affidavit, he proceeded to argue and ask
that certain portions be struck out. I was amused.
Ayine called me a liar and a perjurer in the
media. He gets all the opportunity if he were a
seasoned lawyer to prove it in Court. He failed
even to apply orally to the Court to cross-examine
me, and to put me to strict proof as stated in
their own affidavit. His action was due either to
inexperience or incompetence as a practicing
lawyer.

Ayine then runs to the only place he is competent
in showing how knowledgeable he is as a lawyer
rather than before the Supreme Court – the print
and electronic media – and he charges me with
being a liar. This is so pathetic a display by a
Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of
Ghana. Where have the ethics of the legal
profession gone?

Ayine lost his court-room opportunity to prove his
assertion that I was lying. My sources, which he
lost the chance to probe, are in both the office
of the Attorney General and the office of the
President because I have served in Government for
such a long time and have maintained credible
sources since the PNDC days. Ask the former
Chairman of the PNDC and founder of the NDC who is
my moral compass in the NDC for my capabilities
before calling me a liar. No lies!

Will Ayine wish to tell Ghanaians where he was and
what he was doing when I was PNDC Deputy Secretary
for the Upper East Region (from which we both
hail) in February 1983? Where was Ayine and what
was he doing when I became the PNDC Deputy
Attorney General in 1988? Above all, should Ayine
have a problem with his recollection then perhaps
his elder brother, Billy, who worked with me as a
member of the CDR at the time can help him answer
my questions.

Ayine may also wish to ask his mentor and my
personal friend Mr. Akolgo, former PNDC Secretary
for the Frafra District for help. Or perhaps he
should talk about my honour and integrity to Mr.
Atuguba, the former lawyer of his elder brother,
Billy, whom I persuaded as then Acting PNC
Secretary for the Upper East Region in 1984 to
represent him.

People who know me closely, including my teachers
and lecturers, know that I have throughout my life
stood for the principles I believe in and in my
own conscience and it is strange that Ayine, whose
family has benefitted from my upright character,
insults me because the President has set him
against me.

Ayine, said further on classfm radio that they do
not fear Amidu and continued: “[Martin] Amidu
and Ace Ankomah and the others, they all know that
Marieta and I will never take a bribe.” I
conduct my cases in Court as plaintiff since I
ceased to practice as a lawyer from January 2012.


Ace Ankomah just came to talk to me after the
hearing of my application. He is not my friend but
I am open to talking to all promising younger
lawyers who show promise like Ace, and he does not
deserved to be linked up with my one-man vigilante
activism.

I have never said anywhere that Ayine or Marietta
take bribes. I do not know what worried Ayine to
make such a statement or whether there is such a
cap that fits them. Is there anything he suspects
I know or ought to know about him and Marietta
concerning bribe taking? He has put me on the
enquiry! But I told Ayine in a written statement
in 2013 when he was basking in his new appointment
to take his time and to learn the ropes of the job
in the Attorney General’s office before
beginning to run, else, he may break a leg.

Ayine does not appear to have learnt any lessons
and is still talking like a loose cannon. Ayine!
Whether you and Marietta take bribes or not, what
I can tell you is that I am the longest served
political appointee in the Attorney General’s
office.

I have told you already that most of the Chief
State Attorneys in that office started working
with me in 1988 as Deputy Attorney General when
you had not entered the University of Ghana and so
it would be wise to respect them and learn from
their experience.

Ayine, your arrogance and insolence to both your
seniors and other attorneys has led to most of
them disliking you and you will know how much you
are disdained there once a new Attorney General is
appointed when the Government loses this year’s
elections.

I do not intend to respond to the fulminations of
the embittered unconstitutional lootee (Woyome)
whom I may examine orally on oath on 24th November
2016.

I will not fall into the machinations of someone
so mentally exhausted, and consequently so
ignorant and disrespectful of the law, to have me
comment on the decision and order of the Court
which is pending. He and the media may continue
with their contempt of the Court while the
decision and order are pending. I will not be part
of it.

Fellow Ghanaians, the conduct of the President
after the decision and order of the Supreme Court
on 15th November 2016 in publicly casting
aspersions on the Court and the beneficiary of the
order shows clearly that as the chief looter in
this case, the President is determined to prevent
the examination ordered by the Court in the
absence of strong patriotic public pressure and
opinion.

The lootees, Woyome/Austro-Invest, speaking
through Woyome, have said to the media and it is
published to the public that he would fight the
order of Court to the last drop of his blood.

What more evidence of collusion between the
looting Government and the lootees
(Woyome/Austro-Invest) do we need as citizen
voters that the only way out for us to have our
money back is to vote for a new President in this
year’s election? You have the evidence in the
President’s own unconstitutional conduct!

I say again countrymen and women with all my soul
and with all my heart that: “….Let us protect
our Constitutional rights and not be hoodwinked by
electioneering ploys. Let us get our GHC51, 283,
483. 59 back.

Defend the 1992 Constitution by voting for a new
President on 7th December 2016 to get our money
back. God bless Ghana and put Ghana First!”

Source - Ghanaian Chronicle

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