Executive Director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has criticised a petition to the regulator of the law profession in Ghana calling for investigations into comments made by Dr Dominic Ayine at an academic forum.
Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh has said, “that an opinion expressed at such a forum, to contestation from other participants, would cause anyone to lodge a formal complaint with the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council is unprecedented, bizarre, and ill-advised.â€
He added that not only is the petition to the General Legal Council bound to have a chilling effect on the free speech rights of lawyers, it will also impact negatively on both academic freedom and the freedom and ability of civil society to promote judicial accountability, including through projects like the Judicial Review series.
READ ALSO: Chief Justice petitions GLC to probe Ayine’s ‘disparaging’ comments during 2020 election petition
“I find no justification whatsoever for the Disciplinary Committee of the GLC to be brought into this matter or to investigate Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine for the opinion he expressed on the panel.
“It cannot be ok for a lawyer to praise a court for its handling of a matter but an act of professional misconduct-- or contempt of court -- for another lawyer to express a contrary view of the same court about the same matter,†he wrote on his Facebook wall.