The Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana (AMJG), has filed an official complaint at the General Legal Council (GLC), the body that regulates the Legal Profession in Ghana, against Madina Lawmaker Francis Xavier Sosu for the utterances he made against them recently.
The judges said they deemed the utterances of Mr Sosu who is also a private legal practitioner as an unprovoked attack on the judiciary.
“The questions the association will like to ask Sosu are, who is a political judge, who determines who is a political judge and by what criteria is the determination made? Who are the so-called political judges who are going to be dealt with.?
“The association considers this statement of Honorable Sosu as deliberate and calculated to create disaffection for the judiciary, an attempt to scandalize the judiciary and judges, we condemn the said the statements in no terms
“The association takes a serious view of the statement and considers it very unprofessional from a lawyer and an unprovoked attack on the judiciary.
“Having regards to the seriousness with which the AMJG takes this statement and its potential to do undue damage to the image of the judiciary, the association is lodging a formal complaint against sosu to the general legal council immediately for his unprofessional utterances,” Justice Henry Kwofie, President of the AMJG said.
Sosu warned judges against being partisan along political lines. He said the judges who become political in the line of their work would be treated as politicians.
Speaking to TV3 during the ‘Yen Tua’ demonstration on Thursday February 10, Sosu who is standing trial in court for unlawful blockade of road and destruction of public property after he led some constituents in Danfa on Monday, October 25, 2021 to demonstrate against their bad roads, said “I am begging you, if you make yourself a political judge, you will be treated as a political judge.
“What it means is that when you become partisan as a judge remember that your tenure of office as a judge will run with the political party that you favour. Let that be clear because political power is very transient, positions are not possessions so people will come, people will go,” he said.
The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) criticized him for his comments.
In a statement the GBA said “The GBA finds this assertion by Francis Xavier Sosu Esq. very unprofessional , unfortunate, irresponsible, and distasteful and same smacks of deep-seated ignorance , as the tenure of a judge per the construction, 1992, and other relevant laws is never in any way whatsoever tied to the tenure of the political regime under which judges are appointed.
But Sosu fired back at the leadership of GBA, saying they misunderstood the statement he made against judges.
Therefore, he said the GBA was creating a false impression regarding the impression.
Sosu said “Very respectfully, the leadership of the GBA have sort to create a false impression by their misguided release asserting that judges will lose their jobs when the party that appointed them loses power. This rather reflects the leadership’s misunderstanding of the statement I made.”
