Retired Educationist drags judge, lawyer to GLC, petitions CJ

A retired Educationist in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region, Stephen Okyere Nyame has petitioned the Chief Justice and dragged a High Court Judge and a Kumasi-based lawyer to the General Legal Council over an alleged ‘extortion’ of money.

He alleges per his petition that the judge, Justice Ali Baba Bature, and the legal practitioner, Alfred Anum Quarshie, have colluded to extort money from him for no work done.

The petitioner notes that according to his petition, the judge has awarded a judgment of GH¢180,000 against him in favor of the lawyer without recourse to the case's merit.

Mr. Nyame notes that he was one of the affected clients of the FirstBanc whose funds were locked up due to the Financial sector clean-up.

He indicates that prior to the revocation of the bank’s license by the Bank of Ghana, he had engaged the services of lawyer Quarshie to help him retrieve his investment from the Firstbanc.

Consequently, there was an agreement between Mr. Nyame and the lawyer for the latter to use his resources to pursue the legal challenge so that he would be given 25% of the total claims from the bank.

Even though the petitioner acknowledges that the terms of the agreement were harsh, he was desperate and eager to retrieve his over GH¢500,000 total investment.

He notes further that irrespective of the fact that the collapsed banks including Firstbanc had receivers appointed for them to deal with the customers, his lawyer proceeded with the court case and won a summary judgment with cost.

However, the execution of the judgment was almost impossible because the bank was no longer operational.

Concurrently, Mr. Nyame had gotten in touch with the receiver and thus got a first tranche payment of his total investment which he brought to the lawyer’s attention.

The petitioner indicates further that upon receiving the first tranche of the payment, his lawyer was unhappy and saw it as a move to sabotage his effort to execute the judgment.

Subsequently, he did not inform the lawyer upon receipt of the 2nd and 3rd tranches of the payment. 

However after a long while he was summoned to appear before the High Court Judge, Justice Bature for retrieval of GH¢180,000 from him as service fees of the lawyer.

On the day of the hearing, the petitioner states that even though he appeared without representation, the judge gave a summary judgment thus awarding the lawyer his relief.

He adds that upon making an attempt to appeal against the judgment, he was told that he could only proceed unless he deposited half of the award to the court.

The petitioner is therefore appealing to the Chief Justice to set aside the July 1, 2022 decision of the judge and order for a retrial.

He also wants the General Legal Council(GLC) to call them to order.