Let�s Give Some Credit To Martin Amidu But,�- Effah Dartey

Renowned lawyer, Captain (rtd) Nkrabea Effah Dartey says he agrees with the 'citizen vigilante', Hon. Martin Amidu on his critics that the ace investigative journalist’s approach to finding corrupt judges in the country is wrong but has begged to differ on the involvement of the government in the investigation.

Martin Amidu commenting for the first time on Anas' investigation on the judiciary wrote “The Government ought to be congratulated for its ingenuity in being able to suppress parts of the truth and to turn the displeasure of public anger away from political corruption to only judicial corruption and to take all the credit.

The ingenuity, however, becomes farcical when the Attorney General grants immunity and protection to entrepreneurial Government Commissioned undercover agents who collaborate with established security agencies as independent whistleblowers under the Whistleblowers Act, 2006 (Act 720) and contrary to the prohibition of the Police Service (Private Security Organizations) Regulations, 1992 (L.I. 1571),” 'Citizen Vigilante' Martin Amidu said in a statement.

“…What I did not know was that the method of exposing corruption in the judiciary and parliament was going to be through commissioning covert anti-corruptionpreneurs as government agents (to secretly collaborate with established security agencies) to allow for possible deniability. But I do not think that the late President Mills intended to suppress the results of the Parliamentary corruption investigation by compromising it and using only the results of the judicial corruption investigations to damnify the judiciary knowing quite well that whatever results to be obtained will only be the tip of the ice berg”.

But the lawyer of one of the embattled judges, Justice Ayisi Addo on Okay Fm’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show said he does not buy the assumption of Martin Amidu that President Mahama and his government contracted Anas Aremeyaw Anas to carry out investigation to implicate some judges as corrupt.

“…I don’t think that President Mahama and his ministers or the NDC met to decide that there are some judges they should expose…but I agree with his credentials and I know he was the Running mate of the late former President Mills and so if this is what he is saying then let’s give him some credit but I won’t go that area…honestly, I don’t think it is proper to read politics into the issue,” he argued.

To him, it is not a bother if the government is behind Anas Investigations just to cover-up for their weaknesses in winning cases for the state and therefore expose judges as responsible for the government inability to win cases due to corruption at the judiciary.

Though he also admitted some judges are corrupt, he however said it is disturbing that in the course of this exercise some innocent judges have been dragged along by the poor investigative methodology used by Anas and his Tiger Eye PI team.

“I think some judges are corrupt; that is true but if you want to expose them, you should do your investigations in a proper way so that when it comes out, everybody will understand you. But to lure judges in their homes in a disguise manner with goat and yam, I don’t think that is proper,” he charged.