Forgive me – Sosu renders apology for ‘political judges’ comment

Sosu warns judges

Association of judges reports Sosu to GBA

Your fidelity is to the Constitution of Ghana, Sosu to judges

The Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency, Francis Xavier-Sosu has stated that his recent caution to judges in the country has been taken out of context.

The Madina MP who is a lawyer incurred the wrath of the Ghana Bar Association after he cautioned judges in the country to stay away from politics.

During a demonstration by the opposition National Democratic Congress against governments proposed E-Levy, lawyer Sosu warned that judges who engage in politics will be ‘fished out’ when power changes hands.

However, following reactions against his statement, the Madina MP in an interview with GhanaWeb, noted that his statement has been misconstrued.

“I know that a lot was taken out of context as far as those statements are concerned,” he stated.

In what was an apology to persons including judges who may have taken exception to his comment, Francis said “I am just hoping sleeping dogs would lie so that we can move on. The truth is that those statements were made in good faith, it is unfortunate that it generated that kind of heat it generated and I will say that there are many senior judges that I respect a lot.

“If for whatever reasons someone feels really hurt or disturbed by those statements, I duly apologise and ask that they find space to forgive and let go,” he added.

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On the basis of his statement, however, the MP justified that his caution to the judges was conditional.

“In law everybody knows the effect of if in a statement unless you don’t want to do the law but the law is very clear; conditional statement is conditional statement. If we want to ensure fidelity to rule of law this shouldn’t be an issue at all. Unless somebody wants to take it out of context and use it for politics. And in any event, I was not speaking on a legal platform. I was speaking in my capacity as Member of Parliament and I was also speaking at protest where a question was asked in respect by government using courts to reduce our numbers (minority in parliament) to pass E-Levy,” he said.

"I even started by saying that look if you are a judge then stay out of politics. Because we don’t need NDC judges and NDC judges, we don’t NDC police officers and NDC police officers. We need impartial judges whose fidelity will be to the constitution of Ghana, to their conscience and to their oath of office. That was the context within which this statement was made” the Madina MP added.

In his caution to judges at the NDC’s ‘Yentua’ demonstration on February 11, 2022, Francis Xavier Sosu said “If you are a judge, your fidelity is to the constitution of Ghana and the laws of Ghana. If you allow yourself to be used as a political judge so that you can do the bidding of the ruling government be warned, be warned because we are watching closely at you and in the event that there’s a change of power, every political judge will be fished out, every political judge will be dealt with politically. So please stick with the law let us do our politics.”