Private legal practitioner Justice Abdulai has welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to admit 14 civil society organisations as interested parties in the ongoing case challenging the constitutionality of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act.

Speaking on Joy FM's Newsnight on Tuesday, May 19, he said the intervention by the CSOs would introduce additional perspectives that could shape the Supreme Court’s final determination on the matter.

He added that the CSOs’ participation would enrich the proceedings by introducing insights beyond the immediate legal arguments advanced by the applicant and the state.

"It is great news that the Supreme Court has acknowledged this movement and we believe that they will bring different dimensions to this issue, different perspectives that would shift the final decision that the Supreme Court will ultimately make when the matter gets to the point where the decision needs to be made," he said.

According to him, the decision was important because constitutional cases of such magnitude should not be limited solely to the submissions of the two original parties before the court.

Mr. Abdullai noted that because the Attorney General’s Department had already made its position known, the inclusion of a third-party perspective would help provide a broader legal and institutional understanding of the issues involved.

“The whole essence of law is to allow for social re-engineering, and limiting your scope to the parties before you in a matter such as this would have done a disservice to all of us,” he said.

Responding to concerns that some of the CSOs have consistently defended the OSP and may therefore only reinforce one side of the debate, Mr. Abdullai acknowledged that stakeholders may hold particular views but maintained that their involvement would still introduce new dimensions to the case.

He said the Supreme Court’s acceptance of their participation shows recognition that the constitutional questions surrounding the OSP require a wider examination of legal history, public policy and institutional consequences.

The case before the apex court is expected to determine the constitutional validity of the OSP, one of Ghana’s key anti-corruption institutions established to investigate and prosecute corruption-related offences.