Accra, Dec. 24, GNA - The National Media Commission (NMC) has directed the Editor of the Enquirer, Mr Raymond Archer to apologise to Mrs Justice Henrietta Abban, an Appeals Court Judge, and the Judicial Service for a front-page story in the newspaper last June with the caption "The 'Beauty Queen' who jailed Tsatsu'"

It has also directed that the apology should be published three consecutive times in the newspaper's editions, according to a statement signed by Mr Paul Adi-Gyamfi, Chairman of the NMC.

The statement said the directive followed the determination of a complaint lodged against the newspaper and its editor by the Judicial Service.

It said Mr Justice Alex P. Opoku-Acheampong, Judicial Secretary, who filed the complaint on behalf of the Judicial Service, considered the publication as a scurrilous attack on Mrs Justice Abban and gross disrespect and an affront to the court over which she presided.

The statement said the NMC after examining the evidence presented by both parties and after hearing the parties came to the conclusion that the publication was provocative, unwarranted and in bad taste.

The NMC appealed to the media to refrain from unfair and unwarranted comments on members of the judiciary as such comments eroded the confidence people had in the judiciary, which was the bedrock of the country's young democracy.

Justice Abban jailed Tsatsu Tsikata, Former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, for five years for wilfully causing financial loss of more than 230,000 Ghana cedis to the State.