The Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) Saviour Kudze, has said the courts respect due process and will never forgive anyone who does not follow due process in conducting a case.
To that end, he has told Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng to stop the media warfare on how his cases are being handled by the courts and exhaust all the court processes to conduct the cases.
“Has Kissi Agyebeng told anyone that he has exhausted the process? Did he exhaust the appeal process? He has to follow the process through to the end and then he can say that he has done all that is required by the procedures and you think there is something wrong.
“If you are ready to work there are procedures that follow. The court will never forgive you if you miss out on a procedure. We are all in support of the fight against corruption but follow the procedure,” Mr Kudze said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, December 2 after the Mr Kissi Agyebeng said that just as it is essential that anyone accused of a crime should have free access to the courts so that he may be duly acquitted if found not guilty of the offense with which he or she is charged, it is also of the utmost importance that the judiciary should not interfere with investigation and prosecution authorities in respect of matters which are within their statutory powers.
He said it would be gravely inimical to public policy, the fight against corruption, and the administration of justice if the courts stepped into this arena to decide who should be investigated or prosecuted and who should not.
The danger of this startling decision is once again obvious, he said.
“A judge has granted two persons immunity from investigation for suspected corruption and corruption-related offences and hence immunity from prosecution. This decision opens up a calamitous deluge as every person under criminal investigation would be encouraged to take out suits to injunct investigation and prosecution bodies from investigating and prosecuting them. The real and present danger looms largely on the consideration that by so doing, persons under investigation would conscript the judiciary to clothe them with immunity from investigation and prosecution.
” I do not intend to sound as though I am predicting doom. However, with this development, it would not be long, a suspected murderer or armed robber would boldly walk to court with the unthinkable prayer that the court should injunct law enforcement agencies from investigating him. We are not suggesting that the OSP is infallible and that every case brought by the OSP or against the OSP should end in a favourable outcome – no matter how improbable the evidence.
“However, it seems to us that the flagship public agency created by law to fight corruption should receive better regard and consideration by the courts and not the developing trend of dismissiveness and regression without regard to its governing enactments, and certainly not the erection of non-existent hurdles in its work and operations,” he said at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday November 29 while indicating that there appears to be a developing trend of rather regressive and dismissive judicial decisions in respect of cases involving the Office of the Special Procsueirt (OSP).
“In one case, the OSP applied to the High Court for a confirmation of a freezing order in respect of a deceased person’s estate. The judge refused to confirm the order by, in effect, holding that the OSP had come too late since the person of interest had died and that his death had extinguished the enquiry commenced after the occurrence of death.
“The danger of this outcome is obvious. It is to effect that a person may, in his lifetime, acquire property through corruption and then upon his demise happily pass on the corruptly acquired property to his estate and by so doing, extinguish all scrutiny as to the
propriety or otherwise of the acquisition of the property because his corrupt activities were not discovered during his lifetime.
“Indeed I have had several calls from well-meaning lawyers admonishing me that they have heard talk that our friends who have been elevated to the bench and presiding over cases in court do not take very kindly to criticism, especially of the public calling out variety as we do.
“And that if the office persists in the media releases, the judges will gang up against the office and throw out all our cases. Mind you, members of the press, collective admonishing is from very senior and experienced lawyers who are members of the law. Members of the press, my learning of the law for the past 25 years in three different jurisdictions, my teaching and training of lawyers and law students for the past 17 years, my 20-year record at the bar all bear testimony that I will be the last person to lead an institution to attack the judiciary.
“It will be absolutely of no good should it be the case that the OSP is set against the judiciary or that the judiciary is against the OSP. That will surely spell disastrous consequences for this republic, especially in the fight against corruption to the glee of corrupt persons.”