Ambulance trial: Ordering Godfred Dame to recuse himself would’ve amounted to discontinuation of case – Enoch Afoakwa

Enoch Afoakwa, a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communication Team, has observed that an order by the trial judge for Attorney-General Godfred Dame to recuse himself from the ambulance purchase trial will have amounted to the discontinuation of the case against the accused persons.

He argued that the Attorney-General has the sole mandate under the constitution to prosecute criminal cases on behalf of the state.

The NPP Communicator agreed with the reasoned “advice” from the trial judge to the Attorney-General to recuse himself in the interest of justice and the public.

However, Godfred Dame has ignored the advice by the trial judge. He told journalists shortly after the judge, Justice Efia Serwah Asare-Botwey, had given her ruling dismissing all applications filed by the first and third accused.

According to Dame, the judge herself, even after her ruling, clarified that she had not given any such order at all but that it was only advice, adding, “I am conducting the matter, I am still conducting the trial.”

“The most important point today is that all the applications filed by the applicants have been dismissed in their entirety,” Dame emphasised.

Enoch Afoakwa also shared in the view of the A-G, reiterating the crucial role the A-G plays in criminal prosecution and hence cannot be “ordered” to stay away from the matter he is conducting.

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Speaking on TV3’s New Day programme on Friday, June 7, Enock Afoakwa noted that the A-G, although a minister, has his mandates spelt out in the 1992 Constitution under Article 88.

“The drafters of the Constitution were mindful they knew that the Attorney-General cannot work alone, they knew that the Attorney-General needed an office, needed a staff to work with but the Constitution granted the prosecutorial powers to the attorney-general.

“In terms of who the attorney-general is we know he is a minister, it is not a director of public prosecution, it is not a deputy attorney-general who is not mentioned under Article 88, it is not any other person but the attorney-general, who is Godfred Dame who has that power granted to him by the Constitution to conduct criminal prosecution for and on behalf of the state.

“So if you order the attorney-general to recuse himself, then you are telling the whole world, you are telling the whole people that the trial has been discontinued because the person with the honorable duty of conducting criminal prosecutions has been ordered to stay away. So where lies the trial? How can it go forward?” he argued

The post Ambulance trial: Ordering Godfred Dame to recuse himself would’ve amounted to discontinuation of case – Enoch Afoakwa first appeared on 3News.

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