The Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Searchlight Newspaper, Kenneth Kwabena Agyei Kuranchie has dragged the Attorney General (AG) and Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the latter.
The journalist is praying the court to declare the powers of the OSP as unconstitutional.
This includes the OSP’s powers of arrest, detention, freezing, and seizure, which he has described as abusive.
He also wants the apex court to declare the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (ACT 957) as contrary to “Articles 11, 17. (1)(2) and (3), 88. (3) and (4), 289.(2) 290. (1) (f)) and 290. (2) to (4), 12. (2) and 107 (b) of the 1992 Constitution.”
He is seeking to place the OSP’s prosecutorial powers under the direct control of the Attorney General, similar to the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), Police, and National Investigation Bureau (NIB).
The Special Prosecutor Act is an act to establish the OSP as a specialised agency to investigate specific cases of alleged or suspected corruption and corruption-related offences involving public officers and politically exposed persons in the performance of their functions as well as persons in the private sector involved in the commission of alleged or suspected corruption and corruption-related offences, prosecute these offences on the authority of the Attorney-General and provide for related matters.
Article 88 for instance states that “(1) There shall be an Attorney-General of Ghana who shall be a Minister of State and the Principal legal adviser to the government. (2) The Attorney-General shall discharge such other duties of a legal nature as may be referred or assigned to him by the president or imposed on him by this constitution or any other law. (3)
The Attorney-General shall be responsible for the initiation of all prosecutions of criminal offences.”
Below is the suit filed at the Supreme Court
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
