SAINT-AYISI SAMUEL

The legal profession in Ghana is regulated by 1960 and 1969 rules whose application against a popular human rights lawyer have got tongues wagging. My intention here is to introduce you to a couple of these rules without commentary. The licences for the operation of law firms are subject to renewal each year just as each lawyer is required to obtain a licence each year to be able to practice. People took up those cases when they didn’t have a licence to practice for the particular year. Some lawyers are getting suspended and others getting barred from practising for the rest of their lives. These are the two classes of sanctions the 1960 law prescribes for lawyers found guilty of professional misconduct by a disciplinary panel of mostly very senior judges and lawyers. Section 16 of the LEGAL PROFESSION ACT, 1960 ACT 32 says “[a] lawyer who is found guilty of grave misconduct in a professional respect, including a conduct which, in pursuance of the Rules is treated as grave miscon...

What is Politics? How do you understand the term Politics? Politics they say “is a game of intelligence”. Others ventilate their sentiment on the bases that Politics is very ‘Dark and Dirty’. Upon contemplating on the conceptual term: “Politics”, we believe that to LEAD is to be in LEADERSHIP. And hence, we say politics is a venture, a game, and a place of LEADERSHIP. But having interviewed a couple of substantial political figures in Ghana, divergent personal understanding and views came as a result of years on political practice. In an interview with Madam Eva Loko, the Aspiring Member of Parliament for Klottey-Kolley Consistuency, she strongly claims based on political experience that ‘Politics’ is not ‘Dark’, neither is it not ‘Dirty’, but rather ‘UNPLEASANT’. She strategically prefers to use the word ‘UNPLEASANT’ to define politics. From the mind of the expertise, the unpleasant nature of politics is as a result of ‘insults’ and ‘corruption’. Madam Eva revealed that the intensi...

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah inherited the criminal libel law from the then British Colonial Administration as promulgated under 1960 Criminal Code, Act 29 and was used as an instrument to put media practitioners on their toes and were not left off the hook when they fell afoul of the law such as publishing fictitious statements likely to rundown the reputation of a person. Significantly, the criminal libel law can be looked at as a category of law enacted and used as an apparatus to jail journalists who published statements that had the propensity to injure the reputation of a person. The case of the Republic of Ghana Verses Kweku Baaku Junion of the Guide Newspaper, Republic of Ghana verses Haruna Attah of The Stateman Newspaper cannot be swept under the carpet. The criminal libel law was used by National Democratic Congress Rawlings- led Government to cause the arrest and detention of Kweku Baaku Junior of the then Guide Newspaper, Haruna attah of the then The Stateman Newspaper, Eben Quar...