Prelude: Fear for the Future
I write not from anger but from apprehension. My sentience refuses to be lulled by rhetoric when justice and precedent are at stake. I am a social democrat, a member of the NDC, yet I am first a citizen who believes that law must outlive political cycles. My fear is simple: if we hide behind partisanship and fail to call a spade a spade, the future of the NDC will pay dearly for the injustices and excesses of a choicy few today. After all, no party remains in power forever.
Let me be clear. I hold no likeness or privity with Bernard Antwi-Boasiako (Wontumi) or Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid. Their political fortunes do not concern me. What concerns me is the dangerous precedent we are setting as a nation, one where selective justice masquerades as moral theatre and law bends to applause rather than principle. The day we normalise this culture, every future government, including my own political tradition, will reap the whirlwind of its silence.
It is this fear, not sympathy for the accused, that compelled me to respond to Kay Codjoe’s essay on Dr Hamid’s lawsuit against the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP). Kay is a writer of rare cadence; his prose often glows with rhythm and metaphor. Yet eloquence must still submit to truth. And on this occasion, his performance betrayed the law.
1. The Original Argument: Defending Due Process
I hardly write on legal matters, especially within the Ghanaian context, since I do not claim mastery of its procedural minutiae. But where the application of law threatens the broader architecture of fairness and constitutional order, silence becomes complicity.
The recent bail conditions imposed on public officials accused of corruption, such as Bernard Antwi-Boasiako and Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, appear cutthroat and excessive. Bail in criminal law is not a form of punishment. It is a procedural safeguard meant to ensure attendance at trial, not to humiliate the accused or signal guilt. Where there is no evidence that an accused is a flight risk or a threat to public safety, such astronomical bail conditions raise legitimate questions about proportionality and the presumption of innocence.
My argument was simple. The OSP is vital to Ghana’s anti-corruption agenda, but its sanctity is not protected by silencing the accused or ridiculing those who seek redress. When every lawsuit is portrayed as an assault on justice, we risk erasing the very right that gives justice meaning, the right to challenge authority.
Kay’s claim that an accused person cannot sue the OSP while under prosecution is legally unsustainable. Article 33(1) of the 1992 Constitution grants every person the right to seek redress when their rights are violated. The Constitution makes no exception for the accused. Section 75 of the OSP Act (Act 959) shields officers only when they act in good faith; it does not license defamation or bad-faith publicity.
If an OSP briefing damages a person’s reputation, a civil action is not panic; it is due process. Filing a lawsuit is not a rebellion against accountability; it is the exercise of accountability itself.
Equally troubling is Kay’s tendency to treat accusation as guilt. Article 19(2)(c) guarantees the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Section 31 of Act 959 authorises the OSP to brief the public, but not to brand a citizen as corrupt before conviction. Defamation, in this context, is not an evasion tactic but a defence of dignity.
Kay’s assertion that “asset seizures do not appear in hallucinations” romanticises suspicion as proof. Section 54 of the OSP Act makes clear that seizure and freezing orders are investigative tools, temporary measures subject to judicial oversight, not verdicts of guilt.
Finally, his claim that a civil suit during prosecution constitutes obstruction ignores Ghana’s civil procedure. The High Court may stay a case to prevent prejudice, but it cannot strip citizens of their right to sue. A civil lawsuit, whether or not it frustrates a criminal one, remains within the discretion and purview of the sitting judge to regulate. The court may stay, suspend, or sequence proceedings to prevent abuse of process, but that does not mean the right to bring the civil action does not exist. Filing a civil claim while standing trial is not fleeing justice; it is faith in it.
II. The Counterattack: The Rhetoric of Condescension
Kay’s reply to my essay was swift and scornful. He mocked my tone, my intellect, and even my restraint. He dismissed my reasoning as “wet chalk,” accused me of “borrowed gravitas,” and concluded that my essay was “decorative thinking dressed up as doctrine.”
But sarcasm is not scholarship. His rebuttal, though theatrical, was impoverished of substance. He quoted selectively, argued aggressively, and mistook confidence for correctness. The cadence was Kay’s; the content, however, was hollow.
He claimed that a civil suit cannot proceed during prosecution, a misreading of both constitutional and procedural law. He elevated Section 75 of the OSP Act into a divine shield and declared that public commentary cannot offend the presumption of innocence once a charge sheet is filed. Such assertions are eloquent errors, not legal truths.
III. Dear Kay, The Law Is Not A Stage:
Since Kay preferred to turn legal argument into performance, I accepted the invitation to his stage, but I brought the law with me.
“You write with elegance,” I told him. “Your metaphors come dressed in fine linen, your rhythm is rehearsed, and your applause is always self-supplied. Yet behind all that flourish stands a troubling emptiness, a refusal to engage with the substance of law.”
I reminded him that I did not study law in abstraction but earned a Juris Doctor, a professional legal education built on reasoning, litigation, and the science of jurisprudence. My training was not to mimic but to think.
Then, one by one, I addressed his errors:
1. The Right to Sue:
The Constitution does not silence the accused. The State Proceedings Act (Act 555) subjects the state to liability “as if it were a private person.” To confuse procedural caution with prohibition is to mistake discretion for dictatorship.
2. Immunity and Reasonable Grounds:
Section 75 of Act 959 protects only acts done in good faith. Reasonable grounds apply to investigative acts, not defamatory speech. Immunity shields honest administration, not injurious publicity.
3. Presumption of Innocence:
Filing a charge sheet is not a conviction. Section 31 permits public briefings but not prejudicial commentaries. Prosecutors must speak within the discipline of restraint.
4. Asset and Seizure
A freeze order is suspicious with paperwork, not evidence of guilt. Judicial confirmation ensures oversight, not vindication.
5. Concurrent Civil Action:
Order 4, Rule 1 of C.I. 47 allows any person claiming a remedy to bring an action. The existence of a criminal case elsewhere does not extinguish that right. The judge may stay or regulate proceedings to ensure fairness, but the right to sue endures.
“You wield adjectives,” I told him, “I wield statutes. You perform with style; I argue with substance. The Constitution is not your stage script; it is the nation’s covenant.”
IV. Addendum: Legal Clarity and Context:
Kay later accused me of misunderstanding Article 19 and Section 75. I responded:
“Article 19(2) (c) is not decorative prose. It is a command that binds not only judges but also public institutions. When prosecutors hold press conferences implying guilt, they violate the spirit of due process.”
As for Section 75, its immunity depends on good faith, a question of fact determined by courts, not commentators. Once conduct strays into malice or reckless publicity, protection dissolves.
I also clarified that Dr Hamid’s defamation claim is not rooted solely in asset seizure but in specific public statements made by the OSP implying guilt. His writ seeks GH₵20 million in damages and a retraction, remedies clearly within the jurisdiction of the High Court. Whether those claims succeed is not for pundits but for judges.
Kay’s invocation of “civil suits as intimidation” misreads the doctrine of abuse of process. The principle, as affirmed in Connelly v. DPP (1964), Hunter v. Chief Constable (1982), and Ghana’s own Ex parte Attorney-General (2013), allows courts to stay vexatious suits, not to ban them. The right to sue survives the right to prosecute. That is constitutional balance, not contradiction.
“You wield adjectives; I wield statutes,” I told him again. “You quote selectively; I read contextually. You perform with style; I argue with substance.”
V. Reflection: Rhetoric and the Future of Justice
What began as a Facebook post has now evolved into a debate about the very soul of justice in Ghana. We live in an age where wit is mistaken for wisdom and applause for truth. But justice is not a show.
When the law becomes a stage, the actors multiply, and soon everyone forgets the script. If the OSP becomes both prosecutor and public commentator, if citizens lose faith in due process, if rhetoric replaces restraint, the law itself will lose its sanctity.
I fear that Ghana is drifting toward that precipice. I fear a time when due process will be laughed at as a technicality and reputations will be destroyed by press conferences, not verdicts. And I fear that when power changes hands, as it surely will, those who cheered today’s excesses will wail tomorrow under their own creation.
Conclusion: Beyond Applause
Kay Codjoe writes beautifully, but in this debate, beauty could not substitute for balance. I did not enter to compete in eloquence but to defend principle. The Constitution I revere demands that fairness must not bow to fury.
Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid’s lawsuit is not rebellion; it is a constitutional test of Ghana’s maturity, of whether we still protect the right of every citizen, accused or not, to seek justice when the state overreaches.
When the curtain falls and the applause fades, Ghana will not remember who wrote louder. It will remember who upheld the law.
On that count, I rest, not in theatre, but in text.
Author’s Note:
Dr Manaseh Mawufemor Mintah is a Massachusetts-based legal and environmental scholar whose work spans law, governance, and environmental justice. He holds a Juris Doctor with a specialisation in Environmental Law, a Master of Arts in Sustainable International Development, and a PhD in Environmental Studies. He is also pursuing an LLM in Minerals and Energy Policy. Dr Mintah writes extensively on questions of environment, law, governance, and social justice.