A renowned private legal practitioner, Mr R. E. Bannerman, has called on judges to desist from accepting gifts from lawyers and members of the public, since the practice has the tendency to compromise their neutrality. He recommended the adoption of a practice in the United Kingdom where judges stayed away from public places and mingled less with the public for the sake of protecting their neutrality. “They (judges) don't do that in England. You don’t even see them. They don’t go out sitting in hotels and open places drinking with people and so on. It's a very lonely life if you are a judge there and this is something that we have to learn to do," he remarked. Mr Bannerman made the call in an interview with the Daily Graphic on issues pertaining to corruption in the country. He is expected to address the subject when he takes his turn to deliver the 8th Golden Jubilee Lecture on Thursday. The lecture, which is under the auspices of the Ghana@50 Secretariat, forms part of activities to commemorate Ghana's Golden Jubilee. The sentiments that the public attaches to discussions on corruption and the enormous intellectual capacity of the lawyer to deal with the subject are expected to combine forces to attract a large audience to the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) for the lecture, which is open to the general public. According to Mr Bannerman, there had been instances when lawyers gave hampers to judges, especially during Christmas, and narcotic drug dealers presented gifts to judges. He indicated that invariably, such gifts were given out with the future in mind and judges who accepted them risked compromising their positions on cases involving their benefactors. Asked whether the presentation of gifts in the traditional setting where, for instance, chiefs presented gifts to public office holders who visited them and vice versa, had any implication on corruption, Mr Bannerman said, "It is done within context and we should respect it and take it for what it is." "These gifts are not passed under the table. Everybody knows about them and they are tokens anyway. It's not a matter of £5 million or $20 million paid into a foreign account," he remarked. He noted that the definition of corruption was very difficult, although he narrowed it down to the use of official position for unlawful or illegal personal gain, adding that both the giver and the receiver of such benefits were guilty of corruption. According to Mr Bannerman, although some people had strong perceptions about corruption, they were unwilling to go forward to provide information on the matter. He attributed that attitude partly to the way the system functioned, such as delays in dealing with reported cases and people who reported corrupt practices being treated as offenders. He said the person who made a report on corruption and was most likely to be part of the investigations should at least be informed about the outcome of the investigations. "Herein lies the problem. People don't want to appear and be confronted with the people they accuse, unless they have suffered some real damage or are annoyed at the behaviour of the person they accuse," he noted. Mr Bannerman said as far as the management of corruption was concerned, Ghana had not done too well and that explained why there was so much talk about corruption, which was "getting too corrosive for comfort". He, however, acknowledged efforts such as the enactment of the Financial Administration Act, the Procurement Act and the Internal Audit Act to deal with corruption. “It's not impossible to eradicate corruption. That may not mean that it will never exist anymore. It will mean that it will be difficult for anyone who engages in it," he said, Mr Bannerman said in order to win the fight against corruption, there was the need for people to talk about it and expose it. Source: Daily Graphic