Former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Nii Ayikoi Otoo has laid into the current occupant of his old office, Dr. Dominic Ayine, describing his reasons for withdrawing some criminal cases as unjustified.
He said the explanations offered by the Attorney General were not convincing enough to him and noted it was the same civil servants in the AG’s department who worked on the cases.
Mr. Ayikoi Otoo opined that the motivation behind discontinuing the high-profile cases was that the prosecuted individuals were members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
He said there was “no justification whatsoever” for the decisions, adding that “they know these are all our people [the accused], we cannot allow them to be tried”.
“In fact in the case of [Dr. Johnson] Asiamah, immediately charges were withdrawn against him, he was appointed Bank of Ghana Governor so it should not throw that into anybody’s eyes,” the former top government lawyer said on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey.
He said the withdrawals had little to do with the law and more to do with the “the political game”.
Mr. Ayikoi Otoo said although Attorneys-General discontinuing cases were not new, the incumbent AG had explanations to do given the kind of cases he elected not to pursue.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Attorney-General, Dr. Dominic Ayine offered insights into why he decided against prosecuting existing high-profile criminal cases.
“For ethical and professional conscience, I couldn’t in good conscience continue to prosecute some of the cases.
“The second was that some of the cases, in my own review and analysis, showed clearly that the charges were defective and some were far against the promptness of commonsense,” he stated among a number of reasons.
