NPP Lawyer Whines Over NDC’s Petition To Commonwealth Secretariat

-Over State-Sponsored Human Rights Abuses

Head of Legal the team for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Frank Davies, has claimed that the petition filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the Commonwealth Secretariat over human rights abuses by the Akufo-Addo government is baseless.

Speaking on Top Story, Monday, Mr. Davies claimed there is fair due process going on in the various courts of the country and that the NDC’s petition berates the Judiciary.

“If charges have been proffered in court and prosecution is being rolled, I wonder how anyone can complain of harassment and persecution. If you’ve fallen foul of the law, should you be taken to a fetish groove or a shrine or a cave in some forest? You obviously have to go to court and answer the charges,” he claimed.

“So if they are in court, they have the best of lawyers they should let the court system rule. Is the NDC trying to tell Ghanaians that when they were in power, they didn’t arraign NPP members before a court? … So if the court system is working, the NDC is trying to say because they are NDC, they should not be arraigned before the court?”

In the petition to the Commonwealth Secretariat, the NDC asked for human rights abuses by the government to be probed.

The Akufo-Addo government has been using National Security and the courts to harass critics and political opponents including journalists.

The Judiciary under the NPP government has also been perceived to be in bed with the government.

During the 2020 elections, the government ordered the shooting and killing of about eight Ghanaians and seriously injuring several others when policemen and soldiers believed to be former militia members of the NPP opened fire on protesting voters who complained about election rigging.

Meanwhile, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, said he was not surprised about Frank Davies’ response because he himself is part of the government being accused of human rights abuses.

“I didn’t expect him to say anything different because it is the conduct of the government to which he belongs that we are referring to the Commonwealth Secretariat, so it would have been absurd for him to concur with us. The fact that he holds that opinion does not take anything from our petition,” he said.