Martin Luther Kpebu believes the adjudication of the Supreme Court on the suit challenging the legitimacy and prosecutorial powers of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) will not solve the problem bedeviling the anti-graft institution.
According to the legal practitioner, the current composition of the Office shows it needs an oversight institution to ensure its occupants don’t abuse it.
Mr. Kpebu, speaking on the joining of the suit challenging the OSP’s authority and constitutionality on Ghana Tonight on TV3 Tuesday, May 19, 2026, called on citizens to join the fight in watching the deeds of the Office to prevent what he describes as the abuses the current Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, has subjected the institution to.
“The Supreme Court case doesn’t really solve much because at the end of the day, all we are looking for is ‘who watches the watchman?’, that is where the problem is. I don’t think the Supreme Court decision may do that much if citizens don’t join in the call for ‘who watches the watchman?’. We want to watch the Special Prosecutor too because we’ve learnt hard lessons.”
He stressed that “we need a watchman to watch the Special Prosecutor otherwise we are finished.”
The lawyer further asserted that there are too many stories surrounding Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, saying the status quo, which requires the Office of the Attorney-General to have an oversight over the OSP, is in the right order.
“The stories are too many so under this current regime where the Attorney-General will exert some supervision, it will be better for us,” he reiterated.
His comments follow the lawsuit challenging the OSP’s legality and prosecutorial powers which some 14 CSOs have joined at the Supreme Court.
The CSOs motion for leave to join the suit against the OSP as amicus curie was granted by a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, following a demonstration by their lawyer, Kizito Beyuo, that the CSOs were instrumental in the creation of the OSP.
They had argued that the foreknowledge of the CSOs is going to be vital in the determination of the matter by the apex court.
Background
On December 12, 2025, one Noah Ephraim Tetteh Adamtey invoked the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution by filing a suit for the court to declare the exercise of prosecutorial powers by the OSP as unconstitutional.
He is seeking, among other reliefs, a declaration that the OSP Act, 2017 (Act 959) is unconstitutional to the extent that it confers “original or insulated prosecutorial authority on the Office of the Special Prosecutor, is inconsistent and in contravention of Articles 1(2), 88(3), (4), 93 (2) and 296 of the Constitution and is, therefore, null, void and of no effect”.
Again, he is seeking a declaration that “sections 3(3) and 4 of Act 959, in purporting to make the Office of the Special Prosecutor independent of the Attorney-General in the initiation, conduct and termination of prosecutions, violate the Constitution.”
A-G’s position
In his draft statement of case, the A-G argues that Article 88 (3) of the 1992 Constitution solely vests prosecutorial powers in the A-G alone, and therefore Parliament acted unconstitutionally by passing the OSP Act, 2017 (Act 959), which made it compulsory for the A-G to delegate part of its prosecutorial powers to the OSP.
Article 88 (3) of the 1992 Constitution stipulates that “The Attorney-General shall be responsible for the initiation and conduct of all prosecutions of criminal cases”, while Article 88 (4) provides that: “All offences prosecuted in the name of the Republic of Ghana shall be at the suit of the Attorney-General or any person authorised by him in accordance with law”.
Again, the A-G contends that Act 959 has unconstitutionally varied the prosecutorial powers of the OSP in many ways.
“First, it compels the Attorney-General to abandon its constitutional duty to be responsible for the prosecution of all criminal offences—he is, by the terms of the Act, now only responsible for the prosecution of offences which the OSP is not prosecuting.
Kissi Agyebeng is the problem, not the law – Kpebu on suit challenging powers, legality of OSP
