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Defending an incorruptible judge

At the 2012/2013 Annual General Conference of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), a rare event occurred. For the first time in the history of the GBA, the association conferred on a sitting justice of a Superior Court of Judicature the honour of an incorruptible judge. On the glass plaque accompanying the award were these inspiring words, “On the occasion of its 2012/2013 Annual General Conference, the Ghana Bar Association awards this plaque to Mr Justice Saeed K. Gyan for his uprightness and will to resist corruption in the discharge of his duties as a Justice of the High Court.”

The citation said: “The National Executive Committee of the GBA toured the regions and visited Sekondi-Takoradi in its Western regional tour. Nowhere in the regions visited was a judge singled out for praise by the Bar and the Bench.

“Your first station as a judge was Sekondi-Takoradi where you remained for four years. We visited the region in your absence, but the lawyers could not stop mentioning you for instilling in them discipline and diligence to work.

“They confirmed you upheld your oath of office and dispensed justice without fear or favour. You worked very hard without thinking of being in competition with anybody. No wonder you gained the admiration of your peers who wondered whether they could leave office with the same commendation and accolade. 

“Human as you are, you are bound to have made some mistakes but none bordered on corruption whatsoever. The testimony was that not even a thank you gift after a decision would be entertained by you. Indeed, in you we have an anti-corruption personality.

“It is for this reason, therefore, that the Bar is bestowing on you this singular honour for being who you are, an honest, hardworking and incorruptible judge.”

It is the same Justice Saeed Kwaku Gyan, now a Court of Appeal Judge, who, sitting as an additional High Court Judge on the matter of The Attorney-General vrs The Health Service Workers Union & 11 Others, has come under attack for conducting the case in a manner which has made the “defendants very apprehensive about the inclination of the presiding judge to dispense real and effective justice in the matter”.

He has been accused of pandering to the interests of the plaintiff as the defendants say they “find the disposition and statements by the presiding judge in the matter so far, to be potentially detrimental to the service of true justice in the matter, and respectfully call on the Chief Justice to transfer the matter to a court in which we can be assured of not only an expeditious determination of the case but real and true justice”.

Although the defendants per Messrs Abu Kuntulo, the General Secretary, Health Services Workers Union; Christian Addai-Poku, the President, Ghana National Association of Graduate Teachers; and Isaac Bampoe Addo, the Executive Secretary of the Civil and Local Government Staff Association, have petitioned the Chief Justice to transfer the case to a new judge, they have not appealed against his rulings. 

The ruling on the interlocutory injunction was made on December 19, 2014.  On February 20, 2015, the defendants filed a motion seeking leave to appeal against the order, but the application was withdrawn on February 25, 2015. 

We have decided to follow a constitutional democracy and for as long as we are human, we will have disputes. Civil litigation may be cumbersome and time-consuming. But it is a process that we cannot avoid or circumvent if we want the rule of law and due process to prevail. 

The issue of pension is very dear to Ghanaian workers. The stakes are high and emotions are bound to be intense. But that should not be the reason why innocent persons have to be sacrificed or disowned. 

The Ghana Bar Association is not a sycophantic fundamentalist non-discerning organisation. When it says that a judge is incorruptible, that cannot be easily controverted. That is why I will plead with the workers groups put into the forced litigation by the government, to exercise restraint in the pursuit of their cause, to avoid tainting a Ghanaian judge who has been described and honoured by the Bar as an incorruptible judge. 

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