We must not turn this jurisdiction of contempt into a fetish - Joyce Bawah

Madam Joyce Bawah Mogtari, a lawyer and Special Aide to former President John Dramani Mahama has reacted to a statement released by the lawyers for the Ghana Judicial Service.

The statement had asked media houses with damaging stories against the Justices of the Supreme Court to pull it down.

According to Madam Mogtari, the statement should have come after the ruling of the ongoing 2020 Election Petition.

"Maybe if this had come after the ruling; considering the timing in terms of the context, even reading the content of that correspondent leave enormous room and cause for worry..." she intimated.

"They might have very good reason why they have taken this step but as a practitioner and a student of the law, I would like to just state without any fear of equivocation that I would expect that we do not turn this jurisdiction of contempt into a fetish but that we should seek to legislate accordingly and give clear guidelines and in that sense people will understand and people will get it".

Nonetheless "I have no doubt that criticism will surely come..."

Background

Lawyers for the Ghana Judicial Service says it is "unacceptable" for media houses to "publish on your platforms, speeches and statements and publications which excite anger, hate and passion against the Justices presiding over the election petition".

In a statement addressed to all media houses in the country, such "statements and speeches interfere with the due administration of justice as Justices of our client are threatened with ominous consequences following their decisions which do not meet the expectations of some members of the society".

“This concern has been heightened by the flurry of statements and speeches directed at our client’s Justices, especially after the commencement of hearing of the election petition in the suit intituled John Dramani Mahama v Electoral Commission & Nana Addo,” the statement read.

The legal counsel is therefore demanding that the media houses involved "pull or cause to be pulled down and cleared from your platforms, all statements and speeches which convey and/or insinuate hateful, spiteful, vengeful and incendiary communication against Justices of our client especially those hearing the election petition".

Failure to do this, action will be taken against them "to ensure that you do not abuse the right to free speech by deploying and/or permitting your platform to be deployed in a manner that not only threatens our constitutional order and democracy but obviously, adversely interferes with the due administration of justice and also, brings it, into disrepute".

The statement, however, stopped short of mentioning the media houses involved.