Justice Yaw Appau, a Justice of the Supreme Court, has argued that the “Special Prosecutor has no independence whatsoever!”
“We should know that, and if we don’t know, then we should learn from today,” the Justice of the apex court emphatically stated.
Justice Yaw Appau was speaking in Leadership Dialogue Series 8 dubbed “Uprooting Public Sector & Political Corruption In Ghana.”
He explained that insofar as the Special Prosecutor is subject to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, whoever occupies that office can never be independent.
“He is subject to the authority of the Attorney General. Sub-section 2 of section 4 of [Act 959] says subject to clause 4 of the 1992 Constitution the Office of the Special Prosecutor shall for the purposes of this Act be authorised by the Attorney General to initiate and conduct the prosecution of corruption and corruption related cases,” the Supreme Court Justice stressed.
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Additionally, he quizzed: “The question I always pose is: if the Attorney General and Minister of Justice cannot prosecute some key public officials and his own party men who fall foul of the law because of political clout and other factors, then how can the Special Prosecutor who works under him do so?”
Justice Yaw Appau, who once chaired the Judgement Debt Commission, further argued out that by the law [Act 959] establishing the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), the office is not as independent as Ghanaians have been made to believe.
“Section 2 of the Act establishing the office, that is, Act 959, gives him [the Special Prosecutor] a limited role in the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases.
…It provides that the Special Prosecutor is to investigate and prosecute specific cases of alleged or suspected corruption and corruption related cases,” he noted.
To this end, Justice Appau asked: “Who decides on the specific cases to be investigated and prosecuted?
Continuing, he said, the provisions of section 4 sub-section 1 and 2 were “more interesting,” pointing out that “they provide: 4(1) except otherwise provided in the Constitution, the Special Prosecutor is not subject to the direction or control of a person or any authority.”
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Explaining the above, Justice Appau said it meant that “there is somebody else whom he is subjected to who controls him.”
Juxtaposing the Special Prosecutor with the Electoral Commissioner (EC), the Supreme Court Judge indicated that the latter is independent whereas the former is not.
“Whiles the Electoral Commissioner is someone totally independent, the Special Prosecutor is not; in fact, the Special Prosecutor has no independence whatsoever!”
Source: Daily Analyst
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com
