Re:The murder of the judges - The Akufo-Addo connection

Isaac Ato Mensah's essential argument in the feature article of Monday, 30 June 2008 with above title is completely and utterly false and calculated not only to undermine the rule of law in Ghana but to promote gross lawlessness of the Akufo-Addo type.

According to Mensah, 'Akufo-Addo used the law courts to overturn some of the most arbitrary, yet ostensibly legally immune decisions of the AFRC regime. Three such cases, one of habeas corpus and the others involving confiscated assets, were before the three murdered judges of June 30, 1982, Justices Cecilia Korangteng-Addow, Poku Sarkodie and K. Agyapong.'

On the basis of such acts to overturn LEGALLY IMMUNE DECISIONS of the AFRC regime, Mensah falsely claims, “...Ghana still needs such a man today: to protect and fight for peoples liberties; to speak up against instant justice; to speak up against attacks on the judiciary; to protect people’s rights from being abused by the system and the establishment.”

Nana Akufo-Addo's actions then to overturn legally immune decisions of the AFRC regime was unlawful and unconstitutional under the Third Republic 1979 Constitution.

If the decisions must be overturned, they must be overturned according to the law. The supreme law of the land at the time forbade such an act. So you change the law. The law was not changed. So both Ghana's Judiciary and Ghanaian judges were disgracefully and shamelessly engaged in constitutional and lawless acts urged on by irresponsible young lawyers like Nana Akufo-Addo who may have been very high on illicit drugs at the time.

No one will argue with the fact that “It should therefore be a matter of concern if they are infringing on people’s rights.” But those who do something about these rights must do so within the law. They cannot themselves be engaged in lawlessness.

What Ato Mensah is really saying then is that under the later illegal Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) in which John Agyekum Kufour, also a lawyer, was serving, NOT AFRC, “on the 30th June 1982, four eminent Ghanaians were murdered in cold blood after having been abducted from their homes during curfew hours. The four were Mrs. Justice Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, Mr. Justice Kwadwo Agyei Agyepong, Justice Fred Poku Sarkodie and Major Rtd. Sam Acquah.” Nana Akufo-Addo as a young lawyer , but without legal qualifications (alleged), engaged in lawless acts which contributed to their murder in cold blood.

How can such a man, just like lawless Jerry Rawlings, be fit to be President of Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana?

Such another example of lawlessness is unfit to govern; unfit to rule; unfit to serve. Vote Ndoum.

Kwami Agbodza