Response To Malicous Libels Against the Attorney-General

PRESS RELEASE BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU, ATTORNEY-GENRAL AND MINISTER FOR JUSTICE IN RESPONSE TO THE MALICOUS LIBELS BY A SECTION OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS RENTED MEDIA AGAINST HIS COMPETENCE AND INTEGRITY

This press release has been necessitated by three telephone calls from Bawku in the Upper East Region, Burma Camp and Tema both in the Greater Accra Region on 9th January 2012 expressing support and urging caution for my personal safety because of the cowardly, malicious, and libelous attacks against my well established reputation and integrity as a lawyer, a politician, and the Attorney-General of the Republic of Ghana by a partisan and rented NDC press group who perceive that I am not performing the duties of my office in their partisan political interests.

I wish to assure the members and supporters of the National Democratic Congress who are still unequivocally and resolutely committed to the original ideas of the 31st December Revolution of “Freedom, Justice, Probity and Accountability:” enshrined in the preamble to the 1992 Constitution that I remain steadfast to those principles, ideals and commitments as the foundation of the Fourth Republican Constitution. I remember the gallant men and women who laid down their lives in diverse ways that this county must live and serve the cause of the majority of the ordinary people whose sweat has consistently been exploited by the elite and elitist politicians in the name of service to the people. I appreciate the privilege and recognition accorded my integrity and honesty over the decades when I was invited on 4th June 2011 to lay the wreath on behalf of probity, transparency and accountability in memory of our fallen colleagues and heroes.

I have faith and believe in my Ministerial oath of office as a Minister of State and my Cabinet oath that requires me to “uphold, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana as by law established…”. Consequently, I wish to assure the People of Ghana that I still stand by my promise to the Parliament of Ghana at my vetting for ministerial appointment when I promised that crime will be crime without any political party coloration. I will carry out that promise in spite of the fact that hard core criminals in our society today have made it a habit to hold paid membership cards of major political parties in the Republic as an unconstitutional insurance against crime and criminal prosecutions.

I wish core members and supporters of the NDC who cherish the principles and ideas upon which the party was founded to know that the attacks against me which started in the Daily Post publications of 3rd January 2012 were planned by a colleague Minister of State who perceived that my integrity and professionalism as a lawyer was a threat to the concealment of gargantuan crimes against the People of Ghana in which they might be implicated. An alibi was consequently created on 30th December 2012 to unleash the gullible section of the NDC press on me by the leakage of official documents from my Ministry through the perverse section of a rented NDC press to the public beginning the 3rd of January 2012. That has back fired because the leaked official documents by the Daily Post; the Informer; the National Democrat; the Ghanaian Lense; etc have rather inadvertently supported my honesty and integrity in public office and my call for the prosecution of criminals regardless of their political party colorations or their social status.

I was a Deputy Attorney-General and Deputy Minister for Justice for upwards of twelve and half years and know that it is not proper for an Attorney-General to execute the functions entrusted to him under Article 88 of the Constitution in the media instead of the Courts of Justice. I will speak to the media when it is absolutely necessary to do so but I will not discuss people’s rights and cases in the media to prejudice their eventual procedural rights to a fair trial. The ethics of the legal profession and the Bar, of which I am the leader, are more sacred to me than that of young and inexperienced members of a communication team of the NDC who are absolutely ignorant of the functions of an Attorney-General under the Constitution of Ghana.

I wish to conclude this press statement by stating that there is not one single criminal docket against any high political operative of the NPP which has been ready for prosecution in the Director of Public Prosecution’s office that I have failed or refused to prosecute as that Minister of State and the gullible NDC press want the whole world to believe. Fairness requires that NDC criminals be prosecuted by me as well, as an independent and impartial Attorney-General, albeit appointed by the NDC Government. I have sufficient integrity and experience as a Ghanaian and a legal practitioner who has personally conducted several leading cases reported in the Law Reports of Ghana to naively send hearsay and newspaper accusations to the courts of justice only to loose them as was the practice a few years past. Cool heads are what are needed in the office of the Attorney-General and not emotions, inexperience and crass incompetence in the practice of the law.

As for the section of the rented NDC press calling for my removal or dismissal from office, I wish to assure them that I never begged to be appointed Attorney-General: I opposed it on four separate occasions. That criminal section of the NDC press should be assured that I am ready, able, and willing for that eventuality. The inescapable fact is that at the end of the day truth will prevail over falsehood in the Republic of Ghana. I do not fear for my personal safety in a cause I have fought for since I was 30 years old. I am now over 60 years and count myself lucky if I pay the ultimate sacrifice which my compatriots paid in 1979 and 1981 belatedly in the regime of a third NDC Government. When you die you never know you ever lived. Destiny can never be changed but the good people of Ghana and those who laid down their lives for them will forever live on. Ghana as a nation can never and should never be allowed to be intimidated by charlatants in political disguise.

DATED AT THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S CHAMBERS, ACCRA, THIS 11TH DAY OF JANUARY 2012

Martin A. B. K Amidu (Minister for Justice and the Attorney-General)

TO ALL MEDIA HOUSES