There is no problem with the Chief Justice, Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah filing a disciplinary complaint against legal practitioner and Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga, Dr Dominic Ayine at the General Legal Council (GLC).
According to private legal practitioner and former Member of Parliament for Zebilla, Mr John Ndebugre, the arguments being made by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and other people against the complaint are issues, which should be dealt with when Dr Ayine appears before the General Legal Council (GLC).
“I think he [Chief Justice] was the proper person to initiate a complaint because the statement that Dr Ayine made which resulted in this complaint was that, in summary his confidence in the independence of the judiciary has been shaken somehow by the manner in which the presidential election petition was handled or determined.”
Disagreeing with positions taken by some people that the Chief Justice should withdraw the complaint and that he has no locus to file such a complaint, Mr Ndebugre said Dr Ayine was not talking about an individual member of the panel or the members of the panel who were just seven. He wasn’t talking about combination of them. He talked about the whole judiciary and the Chief Justice is the head of the judiciary and therefore he was the proper person to lay the complaint.
“I don’t want to discuss the merits, however I disagree with the position that Dr Ayine was expressing his freedom of speech and therefore he should not be pursued.
The point is that you must go to the Disciplinary Committee to state that you were exercising academic freedom to speech.
You cannot say that the Chief Justice cannot file a complaint.
So he should go there and point out those aspects of the case that shows that the case was not independent.
Freedom of speech does not mean that you can say what ever you like and get away with it, he said.
He was speaking in a radio interview monitored by Graphic Online on Accra based Citi FM on Tuesday evening (June 22, 2021).
I am not saying that the Chief Justice is right, he added.
more to follow…
