AKOTO AMPAW TACKLES ATTORNEY GENERAL

…says his comments are misleading
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Accra-based legal practitioner, Akoto Ampaw a.k.a ‘Sheshe’ has taken on the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Joe Ghartey over his comments about the ongoing debate on the Freedom of Information Bill.
He disagreed with the proposal of the A-G for the provision of certain limitations under the Bill for the purposes of what he (the Attorney General) claims to be the security of the state.
For him, this comment by Mr. Ghartey was misleading since for according to him, it is the public interest that matters, stressing “because sometimes government may hide under the context of the security of the state to do things that are clearly illegal.”
Instead, he noted, “we should insist on limitations in the public interest and not the rarely difficult context of the security and safety of the state.”
Mr. Akoto Ampaw made these comments at a one-day seminar put together by the National Media Commission (NMC) in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) foundation at the Coconut Grove Regency hotel in Accra under the theme ‘the state of freedom and independence of the media in 2007’.
The problem of the Bill, according to him, was not that of extensions since there would tend to be the need for exemptions.
In his view, these kind of exemptions would serve as an obstacle for journalists or other individuals and corporate entities from having access to information from the offices of the President, his Vice and the security agencies, emphasising “that doesn’t meet the constitutional terms of exemptions or limitations that are reasonably required for the protection of its interest under the Right to Information Bill.”
In other words, the learned fellow said, “information in the President’s office, the Vice President’s office, in the hands of national security or defence, must also be put to the test.”
Where it is to be exempted, he stressed that it should not just be for the reason that it is coming from the office of the President, but “because it is necessary to exempt that information based on public interest considerations or …”
Lawyer Akoto Ampaw has thus charged civil society organisations to start tackling the issue of such ‘blanket’ exemptions in the draft Bill before it is finally passed into law.
In other areas where the exemptions are formulated, he noted that they are not subject to…public requirement.
“Our concern with the Bill is that they should be formulated in such a way as to meet the constitutional requirement for the qualification of this very important right”, he prescribed.
He also had cause to raise questions about the institution mandated to enforce the implementation of the Bill when it is finally passed into law.
Under the current circumstance, as prescribed in the draft Bill, the Attorney General is mandated to carry out this obviously controversial responsibility of enforcing the law.
Many analysts including the former Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) have equally had cause to raise doubts about this implausible role to be played by the A-G, a situation some have likened to conflict of interest, considering the A-Gs position as a Chief State Prosecutor.
Consistent with the practice elsewhere that such laws exist, the lawyers said there is the need to establish an independent Commission to protect that right whilst educating people on the tenets of the Freedom of Information law.
“And it’s to be noted that the Attorney General’s office, currently, is incapable of performing even its core functions of prosecution in criminal matters and representing government in civil matters, so to add this very huge additional responsibility to it, it is not expected that the Bill, when passed into law would have any effect”