A public-spirited lawyer, professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, known as Kwaku Azar has said that all those behind the Judicial Service letter to media house “must come out and purge themselves of the contempt and in, my opinion, resign or be removed from their positions”.
The letter was written to all media houses that have published “hateful, spiteful, vengeful and incendiary” comments about the Justices of the Supreme Court hearing the 2020 election petition of former President John Dramani Mahama, to pull or cause to be pulled down and cleared from their platforms. It further described Ghanaians as “illiterate and uninformed” about the law.
However, Prof. Azar reacting to the press conference held by the Ghana Journalist Association today 1st March 2021, on his social media handle, noted that as Gandhi once said that “a journalist’s peculiar function is to read the mind of the country and to give definite and fearless expression to that mind”. The GJA has vindicated Gandhi with its press release, he said.
He has earlier emphasized the letter was in contempt of the people and still holds his view and is now advocating for responsibility on the part of those who issued it.
Excerpt of the statement from the press conference addressed by the president of GJA Affail Monney accordingly states “the GJA is plain of the view that the threats by the Judicial Service against the media defy logic and are tantamount to an unwarranted assault on all the tenets of freedom of speech and freedom of the media as guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution”.
Professor Azar pointed to a portion of GJA’s statement that explains if the Judicial Service letter is “not reversed immediately, the ill-advised, ill-timed, ill-crafted and ill-issued statement by the Judiciary can provoke a tsunamic backlash, lower the dignity of the court in the eyes of freedom lovers and critical citizens, pollute the media environment, undermine our impressive media rankings globally and dim the beacon of our democracy”.
He maintained “that the Judicial Service and those behind this statement have done severe, perhaps irreparable, harm to the Judiciary. Further, to the extent that the latter does not support the contemptuous statement, it must immediately distance itself from it or risk being assumed to support or even participated in its authorship”.
He again stressed, “for nobody who holds the people in such contempt, as to describe them as “illiterate and uninformed,” should have the privilege of sitting in judgment of them”.
Finally he concluded “we must not leave this matter to the generalities. Somebody or some persons authored it. They must come out and purge themselves of the contempt and in, my opinion, resign or be removed from their positions.
Read his full post below:
Gandhi once said that “A journalist’s peculiar function is to read the mind of the country and to give definite and fearless expression to that mind.”
The GJA has vindicated Gandhi with its press release, excerpts of which are memorialized below:
“The GJA is plainly of the view that the threats by the Judicial Service against the media defy logic and are tantamount to an unwarranted assault on all the tenets of of freedom of speech and freedom of the media as guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution.
If not reversed immediately, the ill-advised, ill-timed, ill-crafted and ill-issued statement by the Judiciary can provoke a tsunamic backlash, lower the dignity of the court in the eyes of freedom lovers and critical citizens, pollute the media environment , undermine our impressive media rankings globally and dim the beacon of our democracy.”
All I will add is that the Judicial Service and those behind this statement have done severe, perhaps irreparable, harm to the Judiciary.
Further, to the extent that the latter does not support the contemptuous statement, it must immediately distance itself from it or risk being assumed to support or even participated in its authorship.
Finally, we must not leave this matter to the generalities. Somebody or some persons authored it. They must come out and purge themselves of the contempt and in, my opinion, resign or be removed from their positions.
For nobody who holds the people in such contempt, as to describe them as “illiterate and uninformed,” should have the privilege of sitting in judgment of them.
But this is Ghana!
#SALL is the cardinal sin of the 8th Parliament.
Da Yie!
Filed By : Agaatorne Douglas Asaah / awakenewsroom.com
