Former Special Prosecutor and legal luminary Martin Amidu has issued a firm warning to President John Dramani Mahama, stating that the president would be in breach of his constitutional duties if he accepts the resignation of a suspended Supreme Court judge who is currently under investigation.
In a strongly worded opinion piece sighted by MyNewsGH, Amidu emphasized that the president must allow the Article 146 proceedings to run their full course and should not interfere by accepting any resignation that preempts the findings of the committee. "The President will be violating the Presidential Oath he took on the assumption of office should he accept the resignation letter of a justice of the superior courts under Article 145(3) after a prima facie case for the removal has been established against the justice in a pending petition and a committee of inquiry appointed to inquire into the petition and to make recommendations to the President under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution," Amidu cautioned.
He explained that any such move by the president would compromise the integrity of the judicial accountability process and could cast doubt on the president's impartiality. "The President who accepts such resignation during the pendency of the hearing into the merits of the petition by the committee will be opening himself up to suspicion of having instigated the petition to compel the justice to take the easy way of resignation to avoid accounting for a committed misconduct or acting to save a justice who has indeed violated his or her judicial oath of office by provable misbehaviour warranting removal from office." According to Amidu, the case in question is already a matter of "notorious fact" and public knowledge, confirming that a committee has been established to look into three petitions brought against a Supreme Court justice who has since been suspended from office pending the outcome of the inquiry. "As I write this discourse, it is a notorious fact of public knowledge that a committee has been appointed pursuant to Article 146(7) to inquire into three petitions against the misbehaviour and incompetence of a justice of the Supreme Court who has been suspended from office until the determination of the petitions and the recommendations of the appointed committee." Amidu expressed dismay over the leaking of documents related to the case into the public domain, noting that both the petitions and the judge's responses have been circulating in the media without official publication by the presidency. "Unfortunately, even though the content of the petitions has not been published to the public by the recipient of the petition to whom the petitioners addressed their respective petitions (the President in this case), alleged unauthenticated copies of the petitions and responses thereto which ought not to be within the public domain have unconstitutionally been circulated in the media as tacit bargaining to influence the public and the appointed committee set to inquire into same." He added that the unconstitutional leaking of the documents has led to a dangerous media campaign, which appears aimed at pressuring the embattled justice to resign, thereby circumventing due process. "The unconstitutional conduct of the leakers of the alleged content of the petitions and the responses thereto have led to media commentaries urging the respondent to resign to save the judiciary from embarrassing accountability, the opening of a can of worms, and also to further save the family of the respondent from embarrassment." Share this:Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Related Topics:Feature Advertisement You may like Two remanded for murder after failed 'juju' ritual to win victim's love Prepare for afternoon thunderstorms - GMet issues weather alert for Ghana Ghanaian asylum seeker granted right to remain in UK due to COVID-19 trauma Ghana cedi named world's best-performing currency - Bloomberg Report "We've become just a label" - Agyarko laments NPP's identity crisis NPP has lost its soul to power-hungry cabals - Boakye Agyarko warns NPP has shifted from its values; materialism now the order of the day - Hon Patrick Boamah Mahama compared to Nkrumah - Akyem Asuom chief predicts 20-year NDC rule Nana Obodade hails Mahama's return, calls his leadership 'unmatched' Click to comment Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published.
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