Your attack on Mahama ‘disrespectful, upsetting’ – Betty Mould scolds ‘young’ Dame

Former Attorney General, Betty Mould Iddrisu has chastized Attorney General Godfred Dame for showing disrespect towards ex-president John Dramani Mahama in reacting to critical comments the former president made about the judiciary.

She described Dame’s comment at the last Bar Conference held in Ho as unfortunate, undemocratic and a slap in the face of Ghanaians demanding fairness from the Judicial arm of government.

In a September 29 interview on Accra-based TV XYZ, she also tasked the Judiciary to step back from their defensive posture to critique but instead work towards appreciating public perception about their work and take steps to improve same.

“Very unfortunate for a young Attorney General, Godfred Dame to come out with such statements about our former President. He was disrespectful and very upsetting to me, having held that position before.

“I forgive him because I am a Christian and it’s an act of charity…” Betty Mould told IDEAS Exchange show host, Eric Ahianyo.

She added that as chairperson of the meeting of National Democratic Congress lawyers where Mahama made the critical comments about the judiciary, most of the attendees agreed to the view of the party’s 2020 presidential candidate.

“I chaired that conference of NDC lawyers John Mahama addressed. And all of us enthusiastically support his remarks about the perception of Ghanaians waning confidence in the judiciary.”

She cautioned Dame further that being Attorney General and by extension leader of the Bar does not give anyone the right to use a Ghana Bar Association meeting to make such denigrating statements.

Mahama’s critique and Dame’s riposte

In his address at the recently held Bar Conference in Ho, Dame stressed that it was worrying that National Democratic Congress, NDC, lawyers had failed to call Mahama to order despite having made the comments at a party event.

“Non-lawyer Mahama made the comments at meeting of the legal committee of his party, none of the lawyers raised a finger to contest the wrong and dangerous propaganda by the former president. By their silence, they became abettors of the propagation of hate against the judiciary,” Dame submitted.

He reiterated the fact that lawyers needed to be the loudest and strongest defenders of an independent judiciary and by extension defenders of the most crucial arm of government.

“I find it worrying because lawyers ought to be the loudest and strongest defenders of the independence, integrity and importance of the judiciary rather than serving as tools for its destruction,” he added.

Mahama told a gathering of NDC lawyers at a conference in Ada that a judiciary needed to be trusted by the public at all times because such trust had wide-ranging implications on the security of the state.

He took aim at the current Chief Justice stating that it would take a new CJ to carry out needed reforms in the judiciary because of growing lack of trust in their work.

The NDC has strongly stood by his views whiles the NPP have slammed it as unwarranted and needless