Lawyer Maurice Ampaw unreservedly hit Justice William Atuguba harder for wading into the matter of the court, and also putting the colleague judges into public ridicule, when he gave a wrong interpretation on the Supreme Court ruling ordering the Speaker to do the needful on the four seats he declared vacant in Parliament
“You are a serious disgrace to the bench. When you are a judge you don’t speak in the public but instead rally behind your colleagues. You sat down and granted interview with tv3” Lawyer Maurice Ampaw stated.
According to Justice William Atuguba, per Article 99(1), “The High Court shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine any question whether (a) a person has been validly elected as a member of Parliament or the seat of a member has become vacant,” he asserted that the High Court should have been the appropriate forum to hear the case.
“As far as I am concerned, this issue of vacating seats is specifically dealt with in Article 99… The question here involves the vacation of the seats of the four MPs, so it is a matter for the High Court, not the Supreme Court. To that extent, invoking the Supreme Court over this matter is wrong,” Justice Atuguba said
Lawyer Maurice Ampaw disagree with the former Supreme Court judge and the wrong utterances he made about the current supreme Court ruling. “You reduced Sammy Awuku to his size when you were a Presiding judge at the Supreme. I’m calling on the Ghana Bar Association to write and condemn such statements” Lawyer Maurice Ampaw lashed out at Justice William Atuguba.
You you are saying are not binding. What I’m expecting Justice Atuguba is to write thesis. You had no copy, which authority did you make your argument? Lawyer Ampaw lamented.