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Member of Parliament (MP) for the Madina Constituency, Hon Francis Xavier Sosu, has hit back at the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), describing the association as a "monumental failure" which has been "reduced to yet another useless institution" by its current leadership.

To him, istead of the current GBA leadership "joining the clarion call to stop our judges from becoming political judges, in order to guarantee our democracy," they are rather more interested in "needlessly attacking the voice of conscience that speaks truth though it hurts badly."

"It is very sad that the leadership of the GBA....historically known to be champions of Rule of Law, Accountability and Social Justice, has reduced itself to yet another useless institution of our democratic process in these days and times," he said.

The Madina Constituency MP was reacting to the GBA's condemnation of certain comments he purportedly made last week. 

Lawyer Sosu, is reported to have asserted during the Yentua demonstration last Thursday, February 10, 2022 that some judges have become political in the line of work and that such judges would be treated so.

He threatened those judges could lose their offices when the political regimes whose bidding such judges do are no longer in power.

“What it means is that when you become partisan as a judge, remember that your tenure of office as a judge will run with the political party that you favour. Let that be clear because political power is very transient, positions are not possessions, so people will come, people will go,” he said.

The NDC MP's remarks did not go down well with the GBA, who considered the former's words as implying that some judges are politically motivated in the discharge of their work.

Describing Mr Sosu's remarks as not only "unprofessional and unfortunate", but also "irresponsible and distasteful", the GBA, in a statement dated February 14, 2022, and jointly signed by the National President and National Secretary, Yaw Acheampong Boafo and Kwaku Gyau Baffour, said his statement “smacks of deep-seated ignorance, as the tenure of judges per the Constitution, 1992, and other relevant laws, is never in any way whatsoever tied to the tenure of the political regime under which judges are appointed”.

“Judges, unlike political office holders, are not elected into office; hence it is reckless for anybody to give the slightest suggestion that the tenure of judges are linked to the tenure of the political regimes under which judges are appointed,” the statement added.

It added that such attacks on judges have the potential of creating disaffection and ill-will for judges and for that matter the judiciary.

“The GBA observes that such ignorant and deliberate misinformation is gradually but steadily casting a slur on the appreciable gains that have been made in our democratic experiment as a nation,” it said.

But in a strongly-worded riposte hours after the GBA's official statement, Lawyer Sosu who is a Deputy Ranking Member of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, accused the GBA of seeking to create a "false impression by their misguided release asserting that judges will lose their jobs when the party that appointed them loses power."

He was, however, emphatic that he will not run away from his comments, though it "was a conditional statement."

"Let me be clear that i stand by my statement any day, any time. The statement was a conditional statement and no matter of twists and turns will extricate judicial officers and judges who would allow themselves to become agents of political partisan agenda," he stated.


More soon.....