WHY I ALMOST DISCONTINUED COURT ACTION
WHY I ALMOST DISCONTINUED MY ACTION FROM COURT
BY MARTIN ABK AMIDU
I have felt so low and abused on 7th March 2013 as having been treated as a surrogate of the Attorney General or the Government in suing the Attorney General; and Isofoton S. A. and Anane-Agyei Forson for their conduct in settling and paying (in the case of the Attorney General and Government of Ghana), and of making claims against the Republic of Ghana (in the case of the other two) when they each knew that the contracts upon which the claims were made had not as, international business transactions been laid before and approved by Parliament.
I felt so low and abused in respect of three separate incidents on that day which but for my fundamental and principled determination to use the opportunity offered by the Constitution to defend the public interest, I would have discontinued my action from the Court. It is important to share my perspective with the public whatever eventually the outcome of the case may be. I stopped writing or commenting on national affairs at the beginning of November 2012 because of the impending elections and the need to put Ghana First by not contributing to the already high emotional tensions of that period. The pendency of the elections petition immediately after the elections has also informed my decision to stay out of any comments that may feed the continued tensions. I write this as a matter of necessity and because of the involvement of a section of the media in unprofessional misreporting that I consider to be creating obstacles to defending the Constitution and fighting for transparency.
The Attorney General as the 1st Defendant, without entering appearance to indicate a readiness to contest my claims against the Government, purported to apply to the Supreme Court on 21st February 2013 for stay of execution of an appeal that is pending in the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court had not heard my case let alone to make orders for the refund of anything in my action that could be stayed by an application from the Attorney General. I sued the Defendants at my personal expense and cost on behalf of the sovereign people of Ghana in the public interest. I had claimed, inter alia, the refund of the monies I alleged the Attorney General and Government paid out, and were received by Isofoton S. A. and Forson illegally and unconstitutionally. The Attorney General’s application was not even for service on me as the Plaintiff but on Isofoton S. A.’s lawyer in the Court of Appeal alone who is contesting the Attorney General’s appeal at the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal had on 10th October 2012 dismissed the Attorney General’s application for stay of execution. The rules required the Attorney General to repeat the application for stay of execution in the Supreme Court if the Government was still interested in having the case stayed while it pursued its pending appeal. The Attorney General for over five good months exhibited an intention not to oppose any payment of the judgment debt by not making any application or seeking leave from the Supreme Court to make the application out of time. Thus on 21st February 2013 when the Attorney General purported to make the application in my case it was out of time for over five months and incompetent.
I became aware for the first time through the Attorney General’s incompetent application that Isofoton S. A. and Anane-Agyei Forson were still in the High Court asking for interests on their alleged claims and enforcing the judgments by a number of applications. So, seeing that the Attorney General was asking for the impossible in my case when they should have done so as part of their appeal in the Court of Appeal, I decided to preserve the status quo in my case by making an independent application to the Supreme Court. I went to material and financial expenses to make the application.
The Supreme Court decided to take my application first even though mine was filed after the Attorney General’s incompetent application. The lawyers for the 2nd and 3rd Defendants (Isofoton and Forson) protested as to why my application was being called first. The Supreme Court pointed out rightly that the Court had the right to decide the order of it business, and in any case the Attorney General had the right to withdraw their application after mine. I moved my application and it was granted. When the Attorney
General’s motion came to be moved the representatives, as was expected and predicted by the Court, withdrew their application, so it was not argued or commented upon by the Court. I had sworn to facts in my affidavit supporting my application in which I stated the fact that the Attorney General’s application could not be made in my case in the Supreme Court. By the court room governance strategy the Supreme Court adopted, my application was used to cover the first incompetent application filed by the Attorney General without even admonishing the Attorney General for the indolence in pursuing the stay of execution from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court for over five months in that manner. The only chance the Supreme Court had to urge the Attorney General to do the right thing the next time was regrettably allowed to pass for strategic reasons but the tax payer, the sovereign people of Ghana, have already paid and may again pay a price for it. I attach herewith in pdf format for purposes of transparency and accountability the applications for any interested reader to make up his own mind and not depend on my narration in case I am biased.
The more indefensible, serious, and professionally fundamental abuses of the day came from a section of the fourth estate of the realm – the media. After the Court session the same day, Joyfm on myjoyfmonline.com reported the Court proceedings as follows: “The Supreme Court has granted the state’s request for a stay of execution in respect of judgment debt payment to Isofoton”. The story was already on ghanaweb and modernghana from joyfmonline. I called Joyfm and all they did was to change it on their website after the fatal harm had been done already. Then peacefm also reported in its second paragraph in a story on its website that: “The Court again granted the state a request for the stay of execution in respect of judgment debt payment to Isofoton” which looked like apparently curled from Joyfm even though part of the source was attributed to citifm. The next day, Ghanaian Times, and the Ghanaian Observer newspapers apparently carried the joyfmonline story above without even acknowledging it. To the best of my knowledge none of these media houses had any reporter in the Court, so how come they could professionally manufacture such reports. Is somebody renting any media houses to misrepresent the efforts at retrieving the sovereign people of Ghana’s money for them? The question I have been asking myself since then is whether the effort to fight and defend the Consolidated Fund of the sovereign people of Ghana is worth it, even when a section of the media which had been reputed for fairness is now misreporting the proceedings of GARGANTUAN unconstitutional conduct against the Republic of Ghana.
On a lighter note, those of you who do not know how to address me should just call me “Martin” or “Amidu” or yet still “Martin Amidu”, I will take no offence. But it is abusive for anyone to address me as: “Honourable or Mr. or what do you call yourself now.” Please do not, however high you may be, because it violates my human dignity as a citizen of Ghana which the Constitution holds inviolable.
The purpose of this discourse is, therefore, to caution the public to hold their horses and refrain from speculating on what the Supreme Court decided in Adamtey v Attorney-General until the certified judgment becomes publicly available. Only then can there be an informed discourse on whether the Court really decided that Act 959 is constitutional in its entirety or found portions of it to be unconstitutional, and the reason for the unconstitutionality.
Kissi Agyebeng has exposed his own incompetence and vindictiveness as the Special Prosecutor to the entire world in the manner in which he handled the allegations of corruption made by Martin Kpebu against him and the OSP he supervises. The consequence has been the massive public disapproval of his conduct in unlawfully arresting and detaining Martin Kpebu with the draconian bail condition of the production of a landed property in Martin Kpebu’s own name.
President Mahama, deal with the payroll “economic crime scene” at the OSP which made a favourable decision for your benefit first and establish your credibility to deal with the irregularities at the NEIP, and the annulment of all appointments made by former President Akufo-Addo after 7 December 2024.
Africa has so many examples of chaos that Ghana can learn from, which is why patriotic citizens must speak up against the creeping canker of the politicization of the Office of the Attorney-General and the judiciary branch of government by the NPP and the NDC. I have raised my finger. Join me by raising your finger as a patriotic citizen so that we can together defend the 1992 Constitution against the political hawks from the NPP and the NDC. Non Desistas Non Exieris: Never Give Up Never Surrender.
The Attorney-General’s press release of 4 July 2023 is an attempted smokescreen to gag citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms. His insinuation that legitimate criticisms of investigatory and prosecutorial functions of his office “unduly interferes with the work of State Prosecutors performing their constitutional function of prosecuting crime in Ghana” ignores provision under the 1992 Constitution, which proscribes that sovereign people of Ghana may hold to account State Prosecutors who allow themselves to be misused to abuse the very prosecutorial constitutional function they purport to perform in aid of an oppressive Government whose aim is to weaponize the system of criminal justice administration to achieve electoral political objects in an election cycle.
The NDC must be congratulated by all patriotic persons who act apolitically in the national interest and believe in defence of the Constitution and in the sustenance of democracy and the rule of law in Ghana. I take the view that Constitutionalism won in the Supreme Court, the Attorney-General failed woefully in weaponizing the administration of criminal justice, while democracy and the rule of law won massively at the Assin North by-elections.
“Every day for thief man one day for master”, so the saying goes. The Courts have spoken and exposed the true Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The chickens have at long last come home to roost and to vindicate the contention of this writer since 2014 that Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI are nothing but a scamming entity on the anti-corruption landscape of Ghana parading as anti-corruption crusaders.
Those who aspire to genuinely crusade against corruption as investigative journalists, and to lead this nation in the exercise of the executive power ought to show an example in upholding the integrity of the judicial process instead of lending their voices to the cohorts of a losing party to scandalize and bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Remember, there is abundant documentary and other evidence of who created and facilitated Anas A. Anas’s rise as an anti-corruption entrepreneur and a covert political agent with unaccountable privileges.
Our late Comrade and President Rawlings, the people of this country whom you loved so much and died for have been led into an economic mess, suffering, and poverty which is worse than what led you to risk your life to save this country and give it a viable constitution that has lasted for three decades.
Efforts and attempts by the group of non-governmental organizations called Corruption Watch Ghana, their associated friends, and lawyers to silence, intimidate, and cancel my voice from defending the 1992 Constitution in the fight against corruption within the narrow laudable objectives of the law will, and has failed. The more my person is attacked and intimidated, the more I shall use all available legal means to ensure that the Office of the Special Prosecutor does not become a rogue institution.
Did Mr. Kissi Agyebeng say that he inherited nine employees from me, Martin Amidu, when he knows so well from the official records contained in my handing over notes and my budget submissions to the Ministry of Finance for the 2021 Budget that the Office had more staff working in it as at the time I resigned from the Office? All the issues allegedly raised by him are dealt with in my handing over notes and may be of some use to him if he has not seen or read them already…
The public must be reminded that the three-year mandate of the Governing Board of the Office of the Special Prosecutor expired at midnight on 11th July 2021 without word from the President or the Office to the public. Now that the three-year tenure of the Governing Board of the Office has expired, patriotic Ghanaians need to be alert and support the Anti-Corruption Civil Society Organizations to ensure that this time round their chosen representative is sworn-in by the President when the new Board comes to be inaugurated.
Eleven months of service as Minister of Justice and Attorney General is not a record in the history of the Office of the Attorney General in Ghana. The evidence is openly on display in front of, Mr. Dame, the Attorney General’s office, that there were other Attorneys General who served in that office for less than eleven months: eleven months is not therefore a record. I am, without any regrets, proud of putting Ghana First and upholding my constitutional oath by leaving office as Attorney General fighting corruption just as I resigned as the SP from President Nana Akufo Addo’s Government on the same account of “The Family’s Corruption”.
My resignation as the first Special Prosecutor was the result of the endemic attitude of President, Nana Akufo Addo’s penchant to usurp the constitutional authority of investigators and prosecutors in criminal justice administration as he tried to do in the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Anti-Corruption Risk Assessment Report implicating him. It had nothing to do with the Members of Parliament double salaries which I never saw nor handled during my tenure. The President’s responses to the media on 13th December 2018 is evidence that this President determines who may be prosecuted for crime and not the Attorney General or Special Prosecutor…
This submission is made as ordered by the Supreme Court on 16th October 2019, to assist the Attorney General by providing available evidence in order to enable the the enforcement of the judgment debt against Waterville Holdings (BVI) Limited.
It is more than one full year since an Arbitration Tribunal brought the arbitration proceedings in the Waterville Judgment Debt Case to an end in a manner favourable to the Republic of Ghana. I am returning to court in my personal capacity as the only person with enough vested interest in the conclusion of the case after having procured the decision, orders and directions of the Court contained in the judgment dated 14th June 2013. Even though I bring this application in my personal capacity as the Plaintiff/Applicant in the above case, I have since 23rd February 2018 been the Special Prosecutor of Ghana with the mandate to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and recover assets and manage proceeds of corruption and corruption-related offences. Consequently, I am also at the time of filing this application responsible for preventing the non-enforcement of the Court’s 2013 judgment which was actuated by an unconstitutional create, loot, and share syndrome as lucidly and ably articulated in this Court’s said judgment.
I wish Hon. Yaw Buaben Asamoa to understand that the Office of the Special Prosecutor is governed by statute and I am mandated to lead it in the achievement of that mandate. I do not need any direct or indirect instructions from any office holder of any political party like him. It is time for him and others like him from other political parties to stop confusing the fact that I was appointed by the President of the Republic to mean that it created a vested right in the political party which supported him to win the elections to instruct or direct me as the Special Prosecutor. I was appointed by the President in his capacity as the Executive Authority of Ghana under the 1992 Constitution and not as the flag-bearer of any political party. Should he think that I am talking too much and not doing my job the simple solution is for him to have me removed from office. Until then he should leave me alone to continue to exercise the independent duties of my office in accordance with my oath before Parliament and my oath at my appointment as the Special Prosecutor.
Who is really sleeping on the job when it comes to dealing with the canker of corruption? Heads of institutions wantonly disregard statutory requests made by the Office of the Special Prosecutor for information and production of documents to assist in the investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences. Public officers have been charged, arraigned before the High Court and their pleas taken only for them to return to their workplaces and work normally as though they have never been suspected of committing any corruption offences. Despite all the powers conferred on the Office of the Special Prosecutor by the law, when heads of institutions continually refuse or fail to support the fight against the canker of corruption by not vigorously applying regulations intended to aid the fight against corruption and other crimes, they ultimately undermine the work and impact of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
Good religious bodies are the moral and ethical compass of social and political organizations and are better adapted to the preventive role of fighting corruption: they have over the years effectively served as corruption prevention social and political organizations in Ghana. Their contributions to the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor attest to their positive preventive role in the fight against corruption. The Office still needs the active support of good religious bodies not only in the prevention of corruption but also to protect its independence and give it the free room to treat corruption and corruption-related offences as purely criminal offences without fear or favour, affection or ill will. Good religious bodies cannot afford to let this last experiment in fighting corruption and corruption-related offences in Ghana be captured again by the political elite just for political point scoring. They have a spiritual and temporal obligation to ensure that the wellbeing of the nation is put above the greed and avarice of the political elite as good religious bodies have tenaciously demonstrated in Ghana over the years.
To correct recent factual misrepresentations in media and on WhatsApp, herewith my response to assure the public that while I occupy the role of Special Prosecutor, crime will always be treated as crime and no political party card can act as an insurance against investigating and/or prosecuting any offences that fall under my mandate under the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959).
The Office of the Special Prosecutor is Ghana’s new anti-corruption agency. With its prosecutorial powers, it is being seen by many as an expected solution to the problem of corruption in Ghana. However, the nation’s inability to adequately resource and guarantee the independence of law enforcement from politics has affected the fight against corruption over the years. Unless there is a change of attitude in practice, the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act may soon be seen by the public to be, like its predecessors, a delusion and not an achievement.
Professor Assibi Amidu of NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway and Martin Alamisi Amidu of Bawku/Accra are today, the 9th March 2018, celebrating the final transition and exit of their beloved mother, the late Atiisah Amidu, who died on 6th March 2016. The family wish to thank all those who have supported and sympathized with them during her death and final transition and farewell ceremony in accordance with Bulsa custom and tradition.
My response at my approval public hearing that some of my articles are based on my perceptions and opinions does not mean that they were not based on fact or reality. Those learned in research methods and intelligence know that my answers were intended for the protection of my sources and collection methods giving rise to the conclusions I arrived at in my several articles on corruption and abuse of power for private gain. The parting thoughts in this article are in recognition of the fact that as a quasi-judicial officer, after my appointment I will have to behave as a justice of the superior court will do and will henceforth be unable to answer to several unfounded criticisms.
Despite my preference for strengthening the traditional, common law and conventional independence of the Attorney General under our Anglo-American-Ghanaian system of jurisprudence; upon my examination, analysis and critique of the provisions of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017, I have concluded that the establishment of a permanent Office of the Special Prosecutor is legal under Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution so long as it is done under the authority of the Attorney General. However, the feasibility of establishing a permanent Office of the Special Prosecutor to deal specifically with corruption and related offences by law is premised on the exemplary moral compass and integrity of the Executive Authority personified by the elected President and his determination to give law enforcement authorities, including the Attorney General, the expected constitutional support to operate strictly in accordance with their oaths of office to be fair, transparent and impartial in the execution of their duties without fear or favour, affection or ill will. Absent such a President and public officers, no number of enactments can achieve the objective of fighting systemic corruption in Ghana. My hope is that this paper will help civil society, the active public, the Government and Parliament to give due consideration to all the factors that need to be taken into account to make the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017 now being discussed by the Committee of Parliament during the vacation, capable of being enacted in a bi-partisan manner when Parliament resumes in October 2017.
Is someone sabotaging the President’s fight against corruption? The current enactment of the Office of the Special Public Prosecutor Bill, 2017, raises questions around the inclusion of Clause 3 sub-clause 4 of the Bill. If, as it states, the Special Prosecutor is not to investigate and prosecute corruption offences relating to the Public Procurement Act, 2003 and the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 – this lays down vague and ambiguous exceptions that can be exploited. Whoever inserted the sub-clause is legalizing an undefined species of corruption as not being serious enough to warrant prosecution ever or at all. The Bill before Parliament also has consequential amendments in Section 78 (1) that remove the offence of corruption from the jurisdiction of the Economic and Organised Crime Office. Who will then investigate and prosecute categories of corruption offences by public officers and politically exposed persons not meeting the standards in Clause 3(4)? We cannot justify any form of corruption. Let us take a keen interest in the passage of the Bill through Parliament so that Ghanaians are not short-changed in the actualization of the promise by the President to fight corruption as corruption, and crime as crime.
The legal advice tendered by the Ashanti Regional Office of the Attorney General to the Ghana Police Service, Kumasi, in the case of R v Mensah Azer & 7 Others, popularly known as the 8 Delta Members Case, is exceptional in the manner it states the facts of the case, and the evidence as disclosed upon the perusal of the police docket, and the legal opinion based on the facts and evidence on the docket. The impression that the regional office of the Attorney General’s Department had to have recourse to the Attorney General simply because the suspects were alleged to be members of the New Patriotic Party is dangerous for our democracy, the rule of law and the prosecutorial discretion delegated by the Attorney General to each of her prosecuting attorneys and particularly her regional representatives.
I invite fellow patriotic citizens to join me in condemning recent unwarranted attacks and shameful insults on the British High Commissioner and his Government, who only sought to defend the honour and dignity of Parliament as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution by pointing out past misconduct and suspected crime of some members of Parliament. The insults coming from MPs from both sides of Parliament give the impression that Parliament is more hysterical about its reputation being brought into disrepute through the exposure of dishonourable conduct by its members rather than maintaining the honour and dignity of the institution of Parliament through a transparent, fair and credible constitutional process of dealing with members who bring the reputation of the institution into disrepute.
Mr. President, Ghanaians exhibit a great deal of good will for you to succeed as President. But make haste slowly and be fairly sure of each step you take. My humble observation from some of your recent pronouncements and acts as President, however, is that you appear to trust so many people without any reservations. Your anti-corruption agenda was a winning manifesto item at the elections, and we are expecting you to implement your promises without fear or favour, affection or ill will. Many Ghanaians, like me, are not followers of your political party but as long as you continue occupying that high moral ground and fight corruption in deeds, you will succeed and your first four-year tenure will usher in the golden age of Ghana again. If you always put Ghana First in your administration, the present goodwill you enjoy will endure throughout your tenure.
Ghanaians have demanded and expect that the mandate of the 7th Parliament will be consistent with the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution; and the promises by the President to protect the national purse and be impartial in the governance of our dear country. The evidence of criminal and unconstitutional conduct in the whole body polity is overwhelming, but unconstitutional attempts are being made through influential chiefs and elders to let bygones be bygones. This is contrary to the demands of the Constitution for accountability, transparency and fairness in governance. May the 7th Parliament and the President remember that even walls have ears and we hear the attempts at trying to compromise the President’s anti-corruption agenda in the name of reconciliation. The President’s anti-corruption drive will be still-born with such compromises and reconciliations. May Ghanaians at the end of this 7th Parliament’s tenure be proud that it has helped to restore the underlying principles and values that Ghanaians gave to themselves the Fourth Republican Constitution, 1992.
The free market place of ideas for expression of personal opinions appears to have carried some away to assume the President-elect’s prerogative of whom he may appoint into his Government by trying to stampede him with choices for several positions within his administration. What has been and is worrying for me is that some citizens are using this natural democratic process of citizen free expression of expectations and anticipation to telephone or speak face-to-face with individual citizens to suggest that they have, are recommending or intend to recommend them to the President-Elect for particular appointments. It is not in the interest of the President-Elect, his Government or the incoming Parliament. Such actions are inevitably a harbinger of cronyism and corruption in the body polity.