Renowned legal practitioner Akoto Ampaw
Renowned legal practitioner Akoto Ampaw has questioned the professional integrity and track record of lawyer Kwaku Afrifa, who is at the center of the $5m bribery allegation against the Chief Justice.
Mr Afrifa has implicated Mr Ampaw in his bribery claims against the Chief Justice. The lawyer who has fallen out with his client, claims his client told him the Chief Justice has requested a bribe of $5 million to tilt justice in his favor in his litigation with Ghana Telecommunications Company and Lands Commission. He also said the Chief Justice told his client to hire Mr Ampow instead of him in order to win the case.
The client, Ogyeedom Obranu Kwesi Atta, the chief of Efutu and Gomoa Adjumako had earlier petitioned the General Legal Council over the impasse with his lawyer.
In a rebuttal, Mr Ampaw said it was infantile to drag him into the controversy.
“And, what, may we ask, would be the motive of Ogyeedom in petitioning the General Legal Council for a return of money he never gave to Afrifa? What, by the way, is the track record of professional integrity of lawyer Afrifa? These are, in my view, valid questions we must ask before rushing into taking his allegations seriously.
“Even more preposterous is the infantile idea that I would collude with anyone, much more the Chief Justice of our Republic, to subvert the cause of justice. I will therefore not permit anyone to sully my name on the altar of politics or personal convenience”.
He also revealed that he has not had any dealing with the Chief Justice aside open court.
He revealed his involvement in the case came about when Ogyedoom approached him to take over the case and upon intense persuasion, he agreed.
Portions of his statement reads below:
For the record, I wish to state, without any equivocation, that the only dealings I have had with the Chief Justice in this matter have been in open court as the lawyer for Ogyeedom.
Beyond that, I have had no dealings whatsoever with the Chief Justice in this matter. Furthermore, even though, of course, I have known the Chief Justice since his law student days in the 70’s, once he became a judge, I have kept my respectful and studious distance from him, as I have from other justices of the Supreme Court, past and present, even if they may have been my friends in school.
I have adopted this attitude in order to avoid the slightest insinuation that I may be using my personal relationship with judges to subvert the cause of justice. I have never even stepped into the Chief Justice’s official residence, since he was elevated to the high office. Yes, I know ethical values are in short currency in our dear country these days, and so people are cynical about almost everything and everyone, and are ready to believe the worst in any person.
I am also well aware that almost everything is now reduced to ugly partisan party politics, and that the main political parties will not lose an opportunity to have a go at each other, on the slightest of occasion, however tenuous the evidential basis.
I can, however, assure Ghanaians that I am definitely not one of those who have lost their values and are ready to sell their soul to the God of money and political power.