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Ghana Bar Association is 'another useless institution' – Francis Sosu

A private legal practitioner Francis Xavier Sosu has described the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), as a "monumental failure" that has been "reduced to yet another useless institution" by its current leadership.

Lawyer Francis Sosu

This comes after Sosu who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Madina verbally attacked judges during the demonstration against the E-Levy on Thursday, February 10, 2022.

The lawmaker during the protest said suggested certain judges will be dealt with politically if the government loses power in the 2024 general election.

He said "What it means is that when you become partisan as a judge, remember that your tenure of office as a judge will run with the political party that you favour. Let that be clear because political power is very transient, positions are not possessions, so people will come, people will go."

The comments by the NDC MP did not go down well with the GBA and said it was disappointed in Francis Sosu.

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GBA reacts

A statement issued by the GBA said: "The GBA finds the assertion by Francis Xavier Sosu Esq. very unprofessional, unfortunate, irresponsible and distasteful and same smacks of deep-seated ignorance, as the tenure of judges per the Constitution, 1992, and other relevant laws, is never in any way whatsoever tied to the tenure of the political regime under which judges are appointed.

"Judges, unlike political office holders, are not elected into office, hence it is reckless for anybody to give the slightest suggestion that the tenure of judges are linked to the tenure of the political regimes under which judges are appointed.

"The Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules, 2020 (L.I. 2423) forbids a lawyer from making a statement about judicial and legal officials which the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard for its truth or falsity concerning the qualification and integrity of judicial and legal officials."

"The GBA observes that such ignorant and deliberate misinformation is gradually but steadily casting a slur on the appreciable gains that have been made in our democratic experiment as a nation," it said.

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Sosu jabs GBA

But the MP in a statement to the GBA accused the GBA of seeking to create a "false impression by their misguided release asserting that judges will lose their jobs when the party that appointed them loses power."

He said: "It is very sad that the leadership of the GBA....historically known to be champions of Rule and Law, Accountability and Social Justice, has reduced itself to yet another useless institution of our democratic process in these days and times."

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