General News of Friday, 27 April 2012Source: citifmonline Citi News can exclusively report that the petition filed against four high profile members of the Ghana Bar Association at the General Legal Council has been withdrawn.

It will be recalled that at a National Commission on Civic Education forum in April 2011, the late Mr. Laari Bimi, then chairman of the NCCE, Dr. Raymond Atuguba, a Senior Law Lecturer and then Executive Secretary of the Constitution Review Commission and Mr. Abraham Amaliba, then of the Legal Resources Centre made some revelations on corruption in the Judiciary.

The move did not go down well with the Judiciary and on a few days later, the highest Court of the land, the Supreme Court, refused to hear Dr. Atuguba when he went to represent his client, Sumaila Bielbel in the now famous case involving the nationality of current Bawku MP, Adamu Sakinde.

The Judges did not stop there but went ahead to file a petition at the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council asking the Lawyers to prove their corruption charge or forever keep their distance from the Courts of Ghana.

Later, David Annan, a member of the NDC Legal Team was joined to the petition for publicly supporting his beleaguered learned friends.

This led to a legal suit being filed against the Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana by the Forum on Governance and Justice amongst others, claiming the Association was illegal and Judges had no right to form a Trade Union or deny any Lawyer access to the Courts when his license had not been duly withdrawn.

After a lot of back-and-forth, Citi News can authoritatively reveal that the AMJG has withdrawn the petition and granted the affected Lawyers unfettered access to all the Courts of Ghana, and asked the Lawyers to keep mute on the matter.

Citi scouts can report seeing two of the three lawyers in Court, practicing without objection.

All attempts to reach the affected lawyers proved futile as they refused to speak on the matter or confirm or deny. **