Lawyers, clerks breeding corruption in judiciary - Lawyer Ampaw

Private legal practitioner, Lawyer Maurice Ampaw, has exclusively revealed on Amansan Television (ATV) that Anas' visuals exposing the rot in the judiciary did not come to him as a surprise at all since he is aware of the 'Justice for Sale' trade that has been going on in the judicial service but did not have the guts to fight it because he was scared of losing his license.

He admitted there is corruption in the judicial service, but it is not every judge or legal practitioner that is corrupt.

"Most judges and lawyers are fully in support of Anas' work, and I think he's been smart in the way and manner he approached this particular story.

I am happy now it is no more a perception but there is visual evidence to prove the corruption in our judicial service. All is not lost, there is still hope in our Judicial service," he told ATV.

He added: "I will be 15 years this year since I was called to the bar as a lawyer, and I have known of this 'justice for sale' trade in all my years as a legal practitioner but it was so difficult fighting it because one is afraid the senior lawyers and judges who were then engaged in this corrupt trade will gang up on you and probably strip you off your license.

It was sad and troubling during Justice Aquah and Justice Owiredu's time at the Cocoa Affairs court in my early days as a lawyer".

According to him, the situation was even worse 10 years ago because those days it was clients that decide how much he or she will pay you per case because already he might have influenced the judge and the prosecutor already.

He revealed it is the clerks and some lawyers that breed corruption in the courts because most of the time some judges are not aware of it.

He said, sometimes the money charged did not even reach the judge. The clerks sometimes play smart on clients whose cases are genuine and extort money from them without the judge's consent.

He also disclosed most lawyers also don't even study cases; "all they do is to call the judge in charge of a case and pay him off. "Our lawyers and clerks breed bribery and corruption in our judicial service.

Some clients even believe that in Ghana it does not take a good lawyer to win a case, all you need to do is to pay your way out and let's be honest these judges are also human beings and are likely to be trapped or fall to these temptations because they also need money to survive. But that doesn't justify it," he told ATV.

He further revealed most Ghanaians have 'corrupt brains' to the extent that they will still want to pay a judge even when they have a clear genuine case.

He supported the idea of premiering the video and said we should 'bury' them in shame but called on Ghanaians to remember Justice Quist in prayers since the bribery scandal has worsened his sickness and have made things very difficult for him.