Use court to seek redress - CJ to retired educationist
The Chief Justice has asked the retired educationist resident in Esreso in the Bosomtwe District in the Ashanti Region to use the legal system to seek redress since the case has already been disposed of.
Stephen Okyere Nyame, a 70-year old retired educationist, in July this year, petitioned the CJ to set aside a case in which a Kumasi High Court awarded a GH¢180, 000. 00 judgment against him.
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In his petition addressed to the Chief Justice, GLC and the media, the petitioner was of the view that the case was not properly tried and was therefore calling for retrial before a different judge.
Case
According to him, he was one of the affected clients of FirstBanc Financial Services, which was among the 347 collapsed financial institutions by the Bank of Ghana.
He said prior to the official announcement of the revocation of the licence of the financial institutions, he engaged the services of a legal practitioner, Alfred Anim Quarshie, to retrieve his investment from the company.
However, he said because he did not have the resources to pursue the case in court, he reached an agreement with Mr Quarshie to use his own resources to pursue the case for 25 per cent of his total claims.
According to him, his total investment with the company was a little over GH¢500,000 and even though the terms of the agreement were not favourable to him, he was desperate to retrieve his money and so consented to it.
Mr Nyame said before the court case, the central bank had appointed a receiver for all the affected companies and directed the affected customers to deal with the receiver.
Meanwhile, he said he got in touch with the Receiver and got the first tranche of the payment of GH¢50,000 and duly informed Mr Quarshie about it.
He said he did not hear from his lawyer again until he was summoned by him to appear before Justice Bature to retrieve the amount of GH¢180,000 as his service fees.
It was after the appearance, that he petitioned the CJ and the GLC.
Response
However, in his response to the petitioner, the CJ through the Judicial Secretary, Justice Cynthia Pamela A. Addo, asked the petitioner “to resort to the judicial process since the case has already been disposed of.”
The General Legal Council is however, yet to respond to the petition.