Martin Amidu
Former Attorney General, Martin A.B.K. Amidu, is the latest to heavily criticise judge Samuel Bright Acquah for his handling of an application for bail made on behalf of Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwame Baffoe aka Abronye DC, describing him a “canker on both the legal profession and the Judicial Service of Ghana.”
According to Mr. Amidu, a lay magistrate would not be expected to write such a ruling on bail, let alone a professional magistrate, and much more a circuit court judge who has been on that bench for years.
“How can the legal profession and the Judicial Service of Ghana have someone on the bench passing for a circuit court judge who refers to books he has pertinently not read as authority for refusing bail in a criminal case?” he queried.
Criticisms
Judge Samuel Bright Acquah came under heavy criticism last week after denying Abronye DC bail, while using George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which preaches inequality, as one of the grounds for the refusal.
The judge did not do himself any favour by further quoting Idi Amin Dada, a Ugandan dictator who is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern world history, to emphasise the limits of freedom of speech.
“It is always said that all persons are equal but in practice, it is not so. Courtesy George Orwell in his book ‘The Animal Farm’, one of the commandments is that all men are equal but some are equal than others. Translated into this case, all men are equal but some are more equal than others,” the judge, who is by law expected to uphold equality, fairness and impartiality, said in his ruling while denying the accused bail.
The judge, in his decision, said Abronye may have been charged with misdemeanours but he will not look at just the charges but the fact that the comments concerned the Inspector General of Police (IGP), and that could put the security of the nation in disrepute.
Criticising the decision, Hamza Suhuyini, a spokesperson for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, described the decision as defying logic, while Martin Kpebu said on live television that decisions such as this was not part of the reasons “we voted for the NDC.”
Amidu Fires
Former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, is the latest to criticise the judge for his reliance on Animal Farm, describing the language used, and the writing style as not only porous but unbefitting to be part of a long essay of a final year law student on the condition on which a court may grant or refuse bail to any suspect.
“Samuel Bright Acquah sought by his ruling to reduce the 1992 Constitution to the level of a dictatorship and authoritarian judicial autocracy in which a circuit court judge assumes the power to control the liberties of the citizen in a manner inconsistent with the Constitution and the due process of law,” Amidu wrote in his latest epistle.
He is also of the view that the judge had no business as a professional judge to lecture Abronye or Ghanaian citizens on their fundamental rights and their noses, adding that “he had no business pontificating about Animal Farm.”
Mr. Amidu also indicates that the judge, based on extra-judicial considerations inconsistent with the court’s bail jurisdiction in which the suspect is presumed innocent, found Abronye DC “guilty” of political insults and remanded him into prison custody, which was later changed to National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) custody.
He also pointed out that incarcerating persons suspected of misdemeanours and minor felonies at the NIB holding cells in cases not being investigated by the NIB, is abusive of the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution.
“The Republic of Ghana under the 1992 Constitution is not Animal Farm in which ‘ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS’,” Mr. Amidu added.
A Daily Guide Report