Former President John Dramani Mahama has taken on the Ghana Bar Association over what he describes as its selective defense of peoples’ rights that are abused under the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.
Speaking at a town hall meeting with only labour unions at the Great Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi Thursday, January 25, 2024, John Mahama cast doubts at the professional integrity of the bar association in defending the rights of oppressed Ghanaians.
“When journalists are oppressed, when peoples freedom of expression is affected, it is the duty of organised labour and unions to speak out, GBA spoke about perception, does GBA goes to sleep when NPP is in power and wakes up when NDC comes? We will see in 2025 whether you wake up,” he noted.
He intimated that the perception that the bar is biased toward the NDC administration is true.
“You know yourselves that when NPP is in power, they do the most outrageous things and and you are quiet, and yet when NDC is in power, the least mistake and GBA has issued a press release, you know it’s true,” he added.
John Mahama in 2023, addressing the closing ceremony of the 3rd Annual Lawyers Conference of the NDC claimed that President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had deliberately appointed most judges to the bench in order to have people who will do his bidding when he is out of office and called on the NDC members to “balance out” the bench.
The NDC flag bearer had alleged that currently, the judiciary is packed with NPP-inclined judges because this government has carried out a deliberate policy of putting their people onto the bench.
The GBA in a swift response took the former president on over his comments, asking why he would condemn what he describes as a wrong act and then in the same breath propose to entrench same.
John Mahama is urging the GBA to stay truthful to the cause of human rights defence .
“The truth is the same under Rawlings, same under Kuffour, same under Mills, same under Mahama and Akufo-Addo, it does not change,” adding that “if you are concerned about peoples’ rights, if you are concerned with protecting human rights and freedoms, you must be consistent under any administration, not only be concerned under some administration and not under other administrations.”
By Komla Klutse|TV3
