Legal practitioners advised to comply with due processes

Takoradi, June 30, GNA – Lawyer Bodza-Lumor, member of the Ghana Bar Association has intimated that without compliance to the due process of the law, little or nothing could be achieved in terms of real justice.

He said the laws of the land were supreme and therefore legal practitioners must resort to the processes laid down in the constitutions in dispensing justice.

Lawyer Bodza-Lumor said this during a public lecture organised by the Western Regional GBA to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of the three justices: Justice Adjapong, Sarkodie and Addo, who were gruesomely murdered for the sake of justice.

He said; “They died for no wrong doings but they died as ministers of Justice”.

Lamenting on the killings of some officials, who were found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death, Lawyer Bodza-Lumor said their killings also perverted justice “as they were not given time to appeal or even serve as witness in investigating people like the Rawlings and Tsikata among others whose names were mentioned in the trial.”

The astute lawyer said, “Non-compliance with due process has again robbed the people of the opportunity to also clear their names or themselves from the matter.”

He cited other cases as the Ya'Na and the 40 others, who were killed in the Dagbon crises and other killings that happened in the Volta Regions as clear cases where the Judiciary had failed to dispense justice on time, adding that, “these speaks low of the value of justice dispensed across the country, justice must be blind and not selective”.

Lawyer Bodza-Lumor argued that for the sake of quality in the justice system, perpetrators of all crimes must be brought to book, irrespective of the time lapse, saying that, “Even if it meant amending the constitution”.

Justice George Boadi, Justice of the Sekondi High Court was not happy about the recent phenomenon where legal practitioner granted media interviews and gave all sort of opinions even when a case was still pending in court.

He therefore advised practitioners to trust and respect the state institutions and allow it to work adding, “When you lambast the justice system because a case did not go in your favour, you are destroying the very foundation you stand on.”

Justice Boadi such tendency had a great potential of eroding public confidence in the judiciary and therefore implored practitioners to stop that practice.

GNA