General Secretary of NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia
Asiedu Nketia has responded to a petitioned filed at the GLC by the Chief Justice against Dr Dominic Ayine
Asiedu Nketia says the Chief Justice should be cited for contempt of Parliament
He believes the Chief Justice is using the GLC to gag lawyers
Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress has urged Parliament to drag Chief Justice, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah before its Privileges Committee if he decides to press on with his decision to haul former deputy Attorney-General Dr Dominic Ayine before the General Legal Council.
Asiedu Nketia said that the actions by the Chief Justice constitute contempt of Parliament and he must be made to answer to appropriate charges.
He expressed that the Chief Justice, like most Ghanaians is not above the law and must be held accountable if he flouts any of them.
“My opinion is that they should cite Chief Justice Anin-Yeboah for contempt of Parliament and haul him before the Privileges Committee to answer questions. No one is above the law in this country.
Asiedu Nketia whiles on Okay FM in an interview monitored by GhanaWeb chided the Chief Justice for trying to use the General Legal Council to gag people from passing their views on judgments.
According to him, the comment by Dr Dominic Ayine is not different from what others have said about previous rulings by the apex court.
“When a case is being heard and you comment on it then its quite disturbing but anyone can comment on a case after judgement has been passed. When the president and he, the Chief Justice gathered in Kumasi at the Re-Akoto lecture, weren’t they reviewing a judgement of the Supreme Court? So they can do it but some of us cannot.
“Meanwhile people have expressed comments than what the NDC lawyers said. The forum, wasn’t it a CDD platform? Why haven’t they invited the lawyers on that platform. Dr Prempeh had already made his opinion. GLC can’t be used to gag Ghanaian lawyers. If they are scared their cases will be discussed at the law school then they should close the law school,” he said.
The Chief Justice in a letter dated, May 25, 2021 petitioned the GLC to probe Dr Dominic Ayine over some ‘disparaging’ remarks he made about the Supreme Court regarding their ruling on the 2020 Election petition.
“These comments are made against the backdrop of the Supreme Court discharging Dr Ayine on a charge of contempt for similar comments made against members of the Supreme Court during the Election Petition hearing. Dr Ayine apologised profusely when he appeared before the Court on the Contempt charge and admitted to having made comments which were unbecoming of a lawyer of his standing and a former Deputy Attorney-General. “His Lordship the Chief Justice therefore finds these alleged disparaging comments totally unacceptable and would like to investigate this matter further,” parts of the petition read.