Justice Abdulai, a private legal practitioner has disagreed with the government’s position that the Speaker of Parliament must hire the services of the Attorney-General in cases he is involved in.
The current A-G, Godfred Dame, is on record to have described Speaker Alban Bagbin’s use of the services of a private practitioner, Thadeus Sory, as illegal citing a Public Procurement Authority (PPA) letter issued weeks back.
Bagbin is using the services of Sory in the four vacant seats case currently before the Supreme Court. Dame on November 11, 2024 prayed the apex court to sanction Sory for not showing up when the substantive matter was heard by the court.
Reacting to the state’s position, lawyer Abdulai who is also a lecturer at the UPSA law school said about the state’s position on Bagbin hiring services of the A-G: “I think that is the biggest preposterous argument I have ever heard. When you have an Attorney-General whose position is completely not in line with the Speaker or Parliament and you still want that Parliament to hire that service of the same Attorney-General to defend it, how?” he stressed in an interview on Joy News.
“But this is the position of the state in relation to Parliament getting its own private legal services,” he added explaining that the absence of Bagbin’s lawyer in court could be related to government’s likely refusal to settle his fees.
Meanwhile, the court has set aside November 12 to deliver its verdict on the case in which the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is seeking an interpretation of the Constitution which Bagbin used in arriving at the decision to declare four seats vacant. Two of the seats are NPP seats, one is a National Democratic Congress (NDC) seat and the fourth is of an Independent MP seeking to contest on the NPP ticket.
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Listen to Justice Abdulai’s take on the matter: