Pro-National Democratic Congress (NDC) pressure group, the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), has expressed disgust over the inability of Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to probe the Chief Justice of Ghana, Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah in an alleged $5 million bribe case.
The Chief Justice was accused by a Kumasi-based lawyer, Akwasi Afrifa. Mr Afrifa made the bribery allegations against the Chief Justice as he gave response in a petition filed against him by his client, Ogyeedom Kwesi Atta IV at the disciplinary committee of the General Legal Council.
According to ASEPA, the response from CHRAJ for not investigating the Chief Justice was disappointing.
It would be recalled that ASEPA petitioned CHRAJ on July 12, 2021.
In its petition, ASEPA asked CHRAJ to investigate allegations of bribery and corruption against the Chief Justice under Article 218(a) and (e) of the 1992 Constitution.
But in a response to the request, the Commission declined to investigate the matter.
CHRAJ had stated that it could not investigate the matter because ASEPA had also petitioned the Presidency which has begun work on the request.
According to CHRAJ in its response to ASEPA, “Since the matter is pending in the appropriate constitutional forum, the commission, in the exercise of its discretion under Section 13 of Act 456, hereby ceases to investigate the complaint any further as the invocation of the Article 456 proceedings has effectively taken the matter out of the forum of the commission.”
But ASEPA is not happy with the response given by the Commission.
Executive Director of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, speaking to Citi News in an interview monitored by African Entertainment, says the response from CHRAJ was unfortunate.
According to him, “If you read the case in point that CHRAJ cited as the basis for truncating this process, they claim that when a plaintiff sues the same defendant in two courts, the plaintiff is elected to stay one of the proceedings and so when CHRAJ during their preliminary investigation realized that another constitutional process has been activated, did they wwriteto us the pplaintiffs to stay one of the proceedings and proceed with the other.”
He added that “So with their own explanation, and their own case in point CHRAJ decided to unilaterally, violate the right of the plaintiffs by deciding for us which of the two processes to stay. We find this very unfortunate and disappointing”.
