[ 2012-04-24 ]

Mills has surrounded himself with law students - Kpegah
A former Supreme Court Judge, Justice F.Y. Kpegah,
is in no mood to defend the John Evans Atta Mills
government.

He said the President treats elderly people like
him with “contempt” and he has taken a decision to
withdraw support for the Government.

“The President has surrounded himself with law
students,” said Kpegah. “Instead of relying on the
wise counsel of people like us. That is why the
government is having problems.”

The Mills government has lost almost all courtroom
battles initiated against former officials of the
John Kufuor administration. The most recent was
the unsuccessful case against former Foreign
Affairs Minister, Akwesi Osei Adjei, and former
National Investment Bank boss, Daniel Charles
Gyimah. An Appeals Court in Accra acquitted and
discharged the men of all charges related to
public funds and several tonnes of rice ordered
from India during their tenure in office.

Last week, a judge in Accra released Assin North
Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong, on bail.
The judge, in ordering the release of the detained
MP, asked state prosecutors to revise the charges
of treason felony, attempted genocide, and
terrorism. The Attorney General’s Department filed
charges against the NPP MP for making what has
been described as hate speech on Oman FM recently.
The judge explained that the facts of the case did
not support the severity of the charges against
the fiery Assin North MP.

Previously, the State lost high profile cases such
as the Yaa-Naa murder trial, the Ghana at 50 trial
and others initiated against former state
officials of the John Kufuor administration.
Justice Kpegah said this pattern of failure has a
simple impetus.

“Take, for instance, the Deputy Minister for
Information; he is a law student. Rawlings is
older than those young men, the President has
surrounded himself with them, but he does not take
our advice on legal or political matters,” he
said, adding, “If my support for the government is
giving me personal damage then I must withdraw and
look at them from afar.”

He went on, “I have written several memos to
President Mills like the Yaa-Naa issue and the
need for him, as a Constitutional matter, to probe
the NPP administration because of probity and
accountability, which is enshrined in the
Constitution (but) he has refused.

“Again, on the Yaa-Naa Issue, I told him
(President Mills) to set up a Commission of
enquiry with a retired Chief Justice as Chairman
and they will send their recommendations to
government rather than politicise the matter, but
he refused. In the end we wasted a lot of state
money on prosecuting the matter in court. That is
why I have decided to take a back seat.”

Justice Kpegah became an ardent critic of the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) after the government of John
Kufuor overlooked him, the senior most judge of
the Supreme Court at the time, to nominate Justice
Georgina Wood as Chief Justice.

In noticeable protest, Justice Kpegah subsequently
resigned his position from the Supreme Court and
has since been a stern critic of the party whose
government failed to make him the third most
powerful public official in the land. Also, he has
over the last three years made public statements
on matters of law and national politics in support
of the Mills government.

Last year, Justice Kpegah kicked a major storm
within the judiciary when he described as “awful”
the trial judge who acquitted and discharged the
15 persons charged for the murder of Ya-Naa Yakubu
Andani in 2002.

He said Justice E.K Ayebi’s ruling showed he was
totally confused by the case.

Justice Kpegah told Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana
show that if the ruling by the judge was submitted
to his desk for promotion as is done by judges, he
would have awarded Justice Ayebi less than one
percent due to his poor ruling on the case.

The Fast Track High Court on Tuesday March 29,
2011 acquitted and discharged all the 15 accused
persons on trial for the murder of Ya Na Yakubu
Andani II. They were acquitted and discharged on
three counts of rioting, conspiracy to murder and
murder.

In its ruling, the court presided over by Mr
Justice E.K. Ayebi said facts presented by the
prosecution had no locus and failed to establish
any complicity of the accused persons in the
murder of the Ya Na.

“From now on, I will just take a back seat and
watch them because that is what my family and
chiefs from the Volta Region have advised me to
do,” Justice Kpegah concluded in an interview with
The Globe.

Source - The Globe newspaper

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