Lawyer, Bobby Banson, has called for the establishment of a public fund to aid private persons who may seek to challenge certain sections of the law to do so in a depersonalized manner.

According to him, the current practice where private members of society who seek to challenge sections of the constitution do so in their personal capacity at the risk of being bastardised by the media has turned many away from seeking judicial interpretations of the law.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile, he noted that some of these cases have far-reaching consequences on society, hence, civil society organisations involved in issues of democracy and rule of law must be encouraged to pool resources to fund such ventures.

This, he says, will prevent private members from being bastardised and labelled by the media and the general public especially when the case in question is politically contentious.

“It goes further for the call that there may be perhaps a time for a public fund to be set up to sponsor some of these things so that people like Justice will not only be committing his time because he’s a professional, he’s a lecturer as well, his financial resources and at the end of the day be bastardised by the media,” he said.

He added that “But if there are civil societies that will commit time and fund and resources to some of these things then it will depersonalize it so that people will not say that it is Justice who had sat somewhere…

“So I think Samson you made this point some time ago, maybe we should push that agenda and get these civil societies that speak about some of these things to commit resources into a fund so that persons that feel strongly about these constitutional matters that have a far-reaching event on our democracy, on our corporate governance event and our society as a whole will be sponsored not in their personal capacity but as a group so that it will depersonalize it.”

His comments were in relation to the legal venture by Lawyer Justice Abdulai in the Deputy Speaker voting brouhaha.

The Supreme Court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse ruled that a Deputy Speaker can be counted during the formation of a quorum for parliamentary decision-making and participate in voting while presiding over the parliamentary business.

The landmark judgement was given after the private legal practitioner, filed a case against the Attorney- General to contest the First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu’s decision to count himself during a vote to approve the 2022 budget.

Justice Abdulai had also asked the Supreme Court to interpret Articles 102 and 104 of the 1992 Constitution and declare the action of Mr Osei-Owusu as unconstitutional.

Subsequently, the Court struck down Order 109(3) of the Standing Orders of Parliament and described it as unconstitutional.

But Mr Mahama believes the 7-0 ruling affects the independence of the legislative arm of government and may affect future deliberations in the House.