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It was Richard Brinsley Sheridan who once wrote: �Give me but the liberty of the press. And I will give to the Minister a venal House of Peers. I will give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons. I will give him full swing of the patronage of office. I will give him the whole host of ministerial influence. I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him to purchase submission and overawe resistance. And yet armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed. I will attack the mighty fabric of the mightier engine. I will shake down from its height corruption and bury it beneath the ruins of the abuse it was meant to shelter�. When the matter of Mabey and Johnson came up, nowhere was it stated that any of the Ghanaians mentioned in the case were on trial and had been found guilty of any criminal offence. What was certain, however, was the fact that the company paid bribe to some Ghanaians. Equally, the government did not issue any statement indicting any of the named persons as having been convicted for any offence. All that have happened have been matters of conscience, morality and freewill. Therefore, if the government sees the need to reappoint Dr George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, the President should be bold enough to do that without the tell tale of an opinion from counsel who has been paid by a client to defend his cause. Dr Yankey was one of the most effective and hardworking Ministers of State in the mould of Dr Richard Anane, who also had to be forced to resign on the orders of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), which were later established to have been ultra vires by a court of competent jurisdiction. The story so diffused and given prominence in the media this week about the opinion of Mr David Owen, Queen�s Counsel, is that in the UK, there is a provision in the Code of Conduct for Barristers conducting proceedings in court to the effect that they �must, if possible, avoid the naming in open court of third parties whose character would thereby be impugned�. In the first place, the provision is conditional, not mandatory. More important, the trial in London did not pronounce on the guilt or otherwise of the Ghanaian officials who were named against the advice of the presiding judge. Therefore, if there is any attempt to redeem the image of those baselessly accused, then the fight must be carried to Mabey and Johnson but not on the peripherals of what the judge said should or should not be disclosed, since the naming of the Ghanaians did not constitute the reasoning for the judgement. Indeed, Section 78(1) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 of that country provides that the court may refuse to allow evidence if �it appears to the court that having regard to all the circumstances including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit�. But more important, since when did the opinion of counsel become the basis of legal argument in establishing precedence or legally enforceable rules? While we could be emotionally angry at the discrimination since the Ghanaians who were not on trial were named in person contrary to the code but their British counterparts who were convicted were not named, that in itself does not indict or exonerate our countrymen. More important, the opinion of Mr Owen cannot be the basis for Stare decisis nor did the issue raised by him constitute the ratio decidendi of the judgement. Indeed, if the matter was fatal to the reasoning informing the judgement, the judge would have commented about it. In the circumstance, we should not put too much weight and flaunt the opinion as establishing the innocence of any of those named. Neither could that be the basis for indicting any of them. The significance of the information, however, is that it provides us the basis to institute internal investigations into the matter to establish its evidential value or dismisiveness. Indeed, the fact that Mabey and Johnson paid bribe to win a contract in Ghana was established for which we have accepted reparation. The only problem is whether those named actually received any inducements. And as to whether a staff of the Ministry of Finance could take bribe towards the award of contract for a bridge project, we as Ghanaians should and must know better than a Queen�s Counsel in Britain. In any case, Dr Yankey has confirmed receiving some amount from Mabey and Johnson, albeit for a different reason, not as bribe but for helping to mediate in a matter between the company and its Ghanaian agent. We must also note that in the matter of Mr Edward Heath, the former British Prime Minister, against whom some baseless claims were made in open court, it was after thorough investigations that it became manifest that he had been maligned. Therefore, we should not be made to believe that an opinion of counsel represents a celebrated judgement for which we should give glory to God for having helped to redeem dented and battered images. That could be vain glory unless we take the other step of independently establishing the innocence of those we feel have been needlessly and baselessly maligned. Moreover, in a country where a number of lawyers breach the code of practice of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), more than they respect its provisions, how could we suddenly put so much focus on the opinion of counsel about a breach of a code. The Ghana Bar Association has countlessly cautioned lawyers against fighting their cases in the media rather than in open court. However, in some instances, lawyers have become activists in advocacy for the cause of their own clients and led media campaigns. In this same country, some decisions of judges even at the Supreme Court, have been openly derided. So, what has changed that suddenly so much weight is given to opinions of people who have been paid to defend specific causes. Have we suddenly awakened to the realisation that positions of lawyers cannot be controverter because they speak in our favour. And that fuss even in the face of the fact that even judgments of the courts in the UK, including the Law Lords, are only of persuasive effect and are not binding or legally enforceable here. If we want to do propaganda, we must learn the sophistication to do it well. The fact is that the innocence or otherwise of those Ghanaians mentioned in the Mabey and Johnson trial, cannot be established from the proceedings in the UK court. That can only be done after investigations into the claim by officials of the company. Therefore, if there is anything that could be done to redeem their images, that must be done here in Ghana and in the open rather than hiding behind technicalities and matters that have not been properly put before a court of competent jurisdiction and for which no evidence was called. More important, we need to learn some principles, that when individuals as third parties, are involved in matters under investigation, where evidence points to their complicity, they should not be judged solely on that, but that they would be properly and thoroughly given opportunity to defend themselves under the audi alteram partem rule. We should not be seen to be pandering to principles on the basis of the gains that accrue to ourselves or those we support. And for our journalists, we must take a leaf from Jaswant Yadava in Politics of News that �the solemn responsibility of the journalist is to help in spreading consciousness among the masses to enable them to understand the forces at work, those that help social advance and those that impede it�, because �it is precisely because journalists have a passionate regard for their integrity that their impact on public opinion remains one of the most vital factors in shaping our society�.