Retired Judge Wants GBA To Reprimand Abuga's Lawyer

A retired Judge of the superior court of Ghana is advising lawyers to learn to defend their clients on allegations made against them, rather than playing to the gallery.

The retired Justice, who will not want his identity disclosed, gave this advice in reaction to allegations by Mr. Joseph Kpemka, one of the lawyers of Mr. Abuga Pele, a suspect in the on-going Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) trial, to the extent that the allegations against his client was because he was from a particular ethnic group.

According to him, the assertion by lawyer Joseph Kpemka that the committee tasked to investigate the alleged financial misappropriation at GYEEDA skewed its report to favour the former Youth and Sports Minister, Mr. Clement Kofi Humado, because all the Committee members and Humado hail from the Volta Region, is unfortunate and a slap in the face of the law profession.

'Instead of lawyers concentrating on defending their clients with facts available to them, they have decided to play to the gallery by engaging in tribal bigotry; thinking that is the best way to free their clients.

Why should my little brother (Kpemka) think that the committee will not recommend that legal action be taken against the former Youth and Sports Minister if the facts available to them (committee) suggest so?' the retired Justice of the superior court pointed out.

According to him, nobody is above the law - irrespective of one's tribal or ethnic extraction, so, for a lawyer to allege in court that the charges of financial loss preferred against his client is a grand ethnic conspiracy is uncalled-for.

'If it were in my court during my days, I would have sent that lawyer out, since ethnic or tribal extraction has no place in our statute books in the determination of the veracity of an allegation brought against anybody.

Since when did judges begin to give ruling based on ethnicity? So, will it be wrong to say that lawyer must not be tolerated in any of our courts following how unguarded tribal and ethnic comments have caused nations?' he asked

'That lawyer should have concentrated on his defense of his client, who is standing trial for that damning charge of 'causing financial loss to the state,' instead of trying to hide behind ethnicity to please his client,' he added; and called on the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) to reprimand Joseph Kpemka, since his comments has the potential to spark tribal war.

Instead of concentrating on the merit of the case, Joseph Kpemka rather chose to toe the tribal line by saying that the decision by government to prosecute his clients on some alleged financial misappropriation was because all the members of the committee set up to investigate the GYEEDA scandal hail from the same region that the former Youth and Sports Minister, Humado hails from.

Not prepared for any tribal and ethnic war, Ghanaians have condemned lawyer Joseph Kpemka for his comments, just as they did in the case of the NPP 2016 flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, when he made his 'all-die-be die and yen Akanfuor' warmongering comments, as well as that of Kennedy Agyepong, and the latest being that of Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo.