Former Deputy Attorney General Alfred Tuah-Yeboah has questioned the basis for selecting only Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) cases for substantive hearings during the legal vacation.

His comments come amid growing debate over a directive by Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie for selected high-profile criminal cases to continue during the legal vacation.

Mr Tuah-Yeboah questioned why lawyers were not adequately involved in decisions to determine which substantive matters should proceed during the period.

He argued that lawyers and judges have an established practice of suspending substantive hearings during the legal vacation, except in circumstances where there are compelling reasons to proceed.

“If the lawyers were involved, I can assure you, perhaps the reasons that may be offered may to some extent be acceptable to the lawyers,” he said.

He cited situations where continuing a case during the vacation could be justified. "For example, there is a witness who is undergoing presentation. The witness is very old and sick, and if we risk that the matter be adjourned into October, it’s possible the person may even pass away. Any reasonable man will say, yes, in view of this, can we hear the matter in vacation?” he explained.

However, the former Deputy AG questioned why similar consideration could not be extended to the thousands of other cases pending before the High Court, particularly civil matters.

He pointed to cases involving injunctions over properties, where parties may have to wait several months before their matters are heard after the legal vacation.

“That's why the issue of selectivity has been very paramount. So why the ORAL cases, as the Deputy AG wanted to believe?” he questioned.

Mr Tuah-Yeboah also cautioned lawyers against accepting the current arrangement simply because it may benefit them in particular cases, warning that a precedent established today could have wider implications for legal practice in the future.

“Today you may think that it suits you, and so lawyers should be rushed to hear the matter whether they like it or not during legal vacations. But you don't know what will happen tomorrow. We must be very, very careful,” he said.

He further questioned whether lawyers had previously been compelled to appear in court to defend clients in substantive cases during the legal vacation.

The lawyer said that in his 24 years of practice, he had never been compelled to do so. He noted that he had handled murder cases involving jury trials and that, even when proceedings were in the middle of a trial as the legal year approached, judges traditionally adjourned such cases into the new legal year.

According to him, this practice could sometimes create significant difficulties, particularly where a juror dies during the vacation and the trial has to begin afresh.

“If in July trial, say, one of the jurors dies, you have to start the case de novo,” he explained.

Mr Tuah-Yeboah therefore argued that if substantive hearings are to be introduced during the legal vacation, the practice should be applied consistently across the judiciary rather than selectively.

“If you are introducing the system, then it must be across the board,” he said.

He challenged authorities to establish whether all judges who have been issued with warrants to sit during the vacation would be conducting substantive hearings.

“The CJ may want to say all judges with warrants can hear their substantive matters. You conduct your investigations throughout the country and find out whether all the judges with the warrants throughout the country will conduct substantive matters,” he stated.

According to him, the fact that only two specialised courts are expected to conduct substantive hearings during the vacation is what has fuelled concerns about selectivity.

“It's only two courts which are going to conduct hearings in substantive matters. And that is the reason why people are talking about selectivity,” he said.