Jail KB Asante, Spio for watching Anas video – Ndebugre

Minister for trade and industry, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah; Chairman of the National Peace Council, Rev Emmanuel Asante; and retired Diplomat K B Asante, must be imprisoned for going to watch a three-hour documentary of an exposé on corruption within Ghana’s judiciary, which was screened at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC), on Tuesday, Mr John Ndebugre, lawyer for some of the Judges indicted in the scandal has said.

According to Mr Ndebugre, the three prominent Ghanaians are “criminally liable to contempt,” adding: “It will be useful to send people like them to prison, even for one day.”

Mr Ndebugri argued, in an interview with Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen political talk programme on Wednesday that the three must be made example of, since their mere act of participating as audiences in the premiering of the controversial documentary at AICC, was contemptuous.

The management of AICC had, at the time of the screening, been served with a writ of summons, pertaining to an application filed by one of the Judges – Paul Uuter Dery – against allowing the use of the venue for such purposes.

Mr Ndebugri said the screening of the documentary was “blatantly lawless” and an act of “impunity” against the Constitution.

The implicated judges include 22 magistrates of the lower courts and 12 Justices of the High Court.

They were captured in a 500-hour audiovisual footage, either negotiating, or receiving bribes in different circumstances, over different cases, to free criminals.

The twenty-two magistrates have been suspended by the Chief Justice, as a five-member committee set up by the Judicial Council investigates their conduct.

All 22 have filed a writ seeking an interlocutory injunction on the committee’s hearing. They argue that the disciplinary action launched against them is not lawful.

The 12 Justices are also fighting, through the courts, the evidence and impeachment processes unrolled against them by the Chief Justice.

The Judges were seen in the video, either negotiating or accepting amounts ranging from GHS500 to 15,000, as well as tubers of yam, and livestock – goats, as bribes.

Some people who watched the documentary on Tuesday expressed shock at how the Judges could stoop so low in their quest to pervert justice.

Mr K B Asante has described the scandal as “nauseating,” while Rev Asante has said it shows Ghana is “rotten and smelly.”