Renowned lawyer Martin Luther Kpebu has criticised the Chief Justice’s (CJ) choice of representation in her petition to the Supreme Court, seeking to halt the ongoing probe into petitions calling for her removal from office.
Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, the CJ, in her application to the Supreme Court, has engaged Godfred Yeboah Dame, a former Attorney-General, as her lawyer.
The suit, filed on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, seeks an interlocutory injunction to restrain the President’s committee from proceeding with its investigation pending the final determination of the case.
Additionally, she seeks to bar Justices Pwamang and Adibu-Asiedu from presiding over or participating in the committee’s deliberations.
Speaking in a telephone interview on The BigIssue on TV3’s NewDay on Thursday, May 22, 2025, the private legal practitioner noted that although the CJ’s decision to contest the issue indicates her trust in the judiciary, which is laudable, her choice of representation is a wrong one.
“It is a very strong signal that she has confidence in the judiciary to give her justice. But if she didn’t, she probably wouldn’t have gone at all.
“The only thing is that the optics are very bad in her choice of Godfred Dame as her lawyer. It’s terrible. People have made comments earlier so I thought the Chief Justice would have taken a cue,” he stated.
He explained that Godfred Dame indulged in unethical behaviour in his controversy with Richard Jakpa, which Kpebu believes should have informed Madam Torkornoo’s decision not to choose him.
Kpebu argues that once the presiding judge admitted the tape into evidence, which captured Dame coaching the witness to deceive the court, it becomes part of the former Attorney-General’s public record, making the CJ’s choice of him problematic.
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“Godfred Dame in this Jakpa case, did a lot of unethical things in the Jakpa tape –was coaching witnesses to go and lie to the court, asking the witness to go and get a fake medical report, saying that Akufo-Addo and Ofori-Atta were on his neck to use the judicial system to prosecute Ato Forson, so that’s persecution –and the tape was official. It was admitted in evidence in court.
“So, for the rest of Godfred Dame’s life, that tape is him. Whether the case goes to the General Legal Council (GLC) or not, whether he is found liable or not, the Judge, Justice Afia Serwaa Asare Botwe admitted the tape as authentic so for a lawyer who has done such a thing and many lawyers are saying he should be sanctioned by the GLC, and yet he has so far escaped it, the Chief Justice, choosing Godfred Dame as her lawyer begins to raise a lot of suspicions,” he explained.
State discontinues case against Ato Forson and Richard Jakpa at Supreme Court
