Attorney-General opts out of CJ's committee probing "Vikileaks"
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, is reported to have recused herself from the committee set up by the Chief Justice to probe various allegations by a former Deputy Minister of Communications that impugned the integrity of the Judiciary.
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According to a source close to the Attorney-General’s Department, Mrs Appiah-Oppong felt that recusing herself from the committee would enable her to not be embroiled in a conflict of interest circumstanc e.
Until her appointment as the Attorney-General, Mrs Appiah-Oppong was a partner at Lithur, Brew and Company, the law firm that represented President John Mahama in the 2012 election petition.
According to the source, the Deputy Attorney-General, Dr Dominic Ayine, was also not willing to replace his boss for similar reasons.
Dr Ayine is a senior partner at Ayine and Feli, a law firm where another member of the President’s legal team, Dr Basit Aziz Bamba, advocates.
The seven-member committee was constituted by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, following a petition by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) asking her to launch a full-scale investigation into the allegations.
Ms Victoria Hamah, the dismissed Deputy Minister of Communications, had stated in a secretly recorded tape that the Minister of Gender and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, might have influenced the outcome of the landmark election petition which had gone in favour of the ruling party.
Nana Lithur, who is the wife of the Mr Tony Lithur, the lawyer for the President in the election petition, has flatly denied the allegation and described it as untrue and outrageous.
Members of the opposition NPP, however, went to market with the revelation, stating that it affirmed their long-held fears that the verdict in the petition had been influenced in favour of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The party, through its General Secretary, Mr Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, therefore, petitioned the Chief Justice to launch a full-scale investigation into the allegations to ascertain the truth or otherwise of Ms Hamah’s claim.