Mr Justice R.S. Blay, The 7th Member Of “The Big Six”

If one is born in a country without a vigorous literary tradition, one's contribution to the political and social history of the country can, at best, be only half-acknowledged by its intelligentsia.

Such was the case with the late Mr Justice R S Blay, former Judge of the Supreme Court and a member of the two most important commissions set up by the British colonialist to draw up recommendations on the constitutional changes necessary for transforming the Gold Coast into an independent Ghana.

These Commissions were the Watson Commission (1948) and the Coussey Commission (1949.) Before being appointed a member of both Commissions, R S Blay had not only achieved enormous success in private practice as a lawyer, but also, he had been elected a member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council.

He was also one of the few Ghanaians appointed by the British to be a High Court judge.

But spectacular as these achievements were, it was Blay's role in helping to found the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) that marks him out as one of the most intelligent and courageous statesmen Ghana has ever produced.

For although he was obviously respected by the colonial government of the Gold Coast (as evidenced by his appointment to two such important Commissions as Watson and Coussey) he nevertheless became a founding member of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) – a body that made no secret of its wish to bury British rule in the Gold Coast!

Blay was, in fact, the third founding member of the UGCC, and its first Vice-Chairman. Since the chair of the organisation, Pa Grant, was not as well versed in legal and political matters as Blay was, Blay could be said to have been one of the leading lights of the UGCC (alongside the organisation's other brilliant lawyers, Dr J B Danquah/ Mr Edward Akufo-Addo and Mr E Ako Adjei.)

But ironically, R S Blay is never mentioned as a member of the UGCC's “Big Six”! What happened?

The reason Blay is that Blay was not arrested and detained with the rest of the ”Big Six”. For the British colonial authorities did NOT think it prudent to arrest and detain him, like they did to the others!

You see, Blay was a very poplar lawyer in Sekondi-Takoradi, who not only represented the municipality in the Legislative Council, but was also, the man to whom the politically-conscious urban workers and market women turned for rescue, whenever they fell foul of British law.

So, at the time the arrests of UGCC leaders were being carried out in 1948 (following the strikes and riots that occurred after the shooting to death, by a British policeman, of Sergeant Adjetey and two other ex-servicemen at the Chistiansborg Crossroads in Accra) workers and market women threw a “cordon” around the premises of R S Blay, in Sekondi-Takoradi.

They sang and danced in a provocative manner, daring the authorities to come and break their crowd up! The British, aware that the port and railway workers (as well as the market traders in Sekondi-Takoradi) were more militant than their counterparts elsewhere, left them alone. Meanwhile, Blay, who had packed a suitcase, ready and waiting at home to be arrested, waited in vain. The British had decided that a one-day “house arrest” was enough for him!

But in denying Blay an arrest, the British had, unwittingly, done Blay the greatest harm by erasing his name from the list of the heroes of Ghana's struggle for independence! For Ghana should have had a “BigSeven” to honour as heroes, not just a “Big Six!” And, as far as I know, no-one has bothered to set the record straight!

But Ghanaian history had not finished with selling R S Blay short! After independence, Blay was appointed a Supreme Court Judge – in 1962. But the man who appointed him, President Kwame Nkrumah, got annoyed with Blay when the latter sent him a strong protest, following Nkrumah's dismissal of the Chief Justice of the time, Sir Arku Korsah and two other Supreme Court judges (Mr Justice Van Lare,and Mr Justice Edward Akufo-Addo) for acquitting a former Minister of Information, Mr Tawia Adamafio and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr E Ako Adjei (and others) who had been charged with attempting to assassinate President Kwame Nkrumah, at Kulungugu in August 1962.

Nkrumah sacked Blay (along with another Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Kofi Adumua Bossman, who had also protested against the dismissal of the Chief Justice.) Blay was short-changed by history a second time because – although the dismissal of Sir Arku Korsah and the two other Supreme Court judges is well reported in the legal annals of Ghana, the dismissal of Blay and Bossman for protesting against that legal aberration, is seldom mentioned.

Yet it's of great significance, in that it was one of the few times in Ghana when men in high office had risked their jobs by protesting against the actions of higher authority against their colleagues.

Robert Samuel Blay was born in April 1901 at Esiama in the Western Region. In 1920, he went to study law at the University of London and was called to the bar in June, 1926. It was as a student in London that he became active in politics, serving as an executive member of the West African Students Union.

On his return to Ghana in 1926, Robert joined the Aborigines Rights Protection Society. He later became a founding member and the first Vice-Chair of the United Gold Coast Convention.

Among RS Blay's children (with hus wife, Diana) is Mrs Mary Chinery Hesse, former ambassador and now Chancellor of the University of Ghana. The owner of Daily Guide Media, Mr Freddy Blay, is his nephew.

R S Blay died in December 1979. Ghana has neglected him long enough and must make amend as soon aas possible.