‘To Say AG Is Dishonest’ Was Below Par – Martin Kpebu To Edudzi Tamakloe
|
Listen to this article
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Martin Kpebu, a private legal practitioner, has disagreed with lawyer Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe’s description of Godfred Yeboah Dame, the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, as a dishonest person.
Kpebu,was not happy that the two learned colleagues – a senior and junior – will be at each other’s neck after they both argued legally before the Supreme Court Justice in the application for an injunction on the implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy.)
He said, Godfred Dame’s description of the happenings in court as an “embarrassing spectacle” has become a cliché within the legal fraternity.
He noted that practicing lawyers are used to the AG’s description because it is “what we hear in court every day” – as it has become the standard language and practice in court.
Do you want the best Odds? Click Here
“When I listened to the Attorney General’s words that ‘they were embarrassing’, as I have already told you, we say incompetent, hopeless, full of conjectures, it sounded more like what we hear in court every day,” Martin Kpebu said.
To him, the lawyer for the applicants in the E-Levy injunction case, Edudzi Tamakloe’s furious response to the AG was below par.
“To be very frank…I thought that you should have stopped him because to say that the AG is dishonest, no, you should have stopped him…That went too far and even I thought that to the extent that the AG’s comment had come earlier, if someone was coming to respond, you would guard against the very rules you are accusing the other person of breaching,” Kpebu told Joy FM’s Emefa Apawu on Top Story, Thursday, May 5.
The Attorney General had criticised the Minority in Parliament for failing to adduce evidence in court on Wednesday over the claim of the illegal passage of the E-Levy on March 29.
He said, “You saw what happened in court today. It was an embarrassing spectacle. The lawyer clearly was not able to demonstrate any form of irregularities with proceedings in Parliament. The court asked him, so is there any record that indicates that X number of MPs walked out at a certain stage?
“He obviously said no, there was no evidence indicating whether there was a headcount of a number of MPs present in Parliament who voted to support the bill. There was also nothing indicated by the lawyer which suggests there was a walkout of X number of MPs, so I think we should ignore all that propaganda,” Godfred Dame told the press after court proceedings.
But reacting to the AG’s comment on Joy FM’s Top Story, Thursday, May 5, Edudzi Tamakloe said, “I am also describing his conduct as a very dishonest Attorney General.”
He contended that, “For the Attorney-General to invite journalists to his office and set himself up with the view of attacking my person and my professional competence, to that extent, I am entitled to say this our Attorney General has no regard for candour and honesty.
“Unfortunately, this is the Attorney General that we have to contend with. He sees himself as more of an NPP propagandist than the Minister of Justice. I am not going to take that from him and it will never happen with me.”
The Supreme Court by a unanimous 7-0 decision on Wednesday dismissed the application for an injunction against the implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy).
The court also ordered the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to keep accurate records of all e-levy deductions to enable a refund to payees if it is later determined that the law was passed unconstitutionally.
