Senior Presidential Advisor and Senior Presidential Aide to President John Dramani Mahama, Joyce Bawah Mogtari, has questioned the Ghana Bar Association’s (GBA) concerns over directives requiring lawyers to appear before Vacation Courts during the legal vacation.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, August 12, Ms Mogtari said she found it difficult not to perceive “ulterior motives” in the GBA’s letter to Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, suggesting that the association’s position could be viewed as an affront to the administrative authority of the Chief Justice.

“Difficult for me not to read ulterior motives in the #GBA’s letter to the Right Honorable Chief Justice. It sounds almost like an affront to the administrative authority of the Chief Justice,” she wrote.

Her comments follow a letter from the GBA to the Chief Justice on Monday, August 10, in which the association expressed concern over directives requiring lawyers to appear before Vacation Courts despite having indicated their unavailability.

The GBA argued that the legal vacation, which runs from August 1 to September 30, is intended to provide judges, lawyers and judicial staff with a period of respite following the demanding court calendar.

Madam Mogtari, however, defended the continued use of Vacation Courts, saying judges have historically sat during the legal vacation to help expedite cases and reduce the workload of the courts.

“From the longest time we have almost always had vacation Judges sitting in the course of the legal vacation. To expedite cases and to reduce the case load,” she said.

She questioned why the GBA would publicly challenge the Chief Justice’s approach to managing the courts, describing the association’s decision to do so as “disrespectfully disturbing”.

“Why would the #GBA want to needlessly undermine the work of the Chief Justice and to do so in such a public manner also sounds very disrespectfully disturbing,” she added.