Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu says businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome should not have challenged the General Legal Council’s (GLC) decision to disbar Chief State Attorney, Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh.

According to him, certain conduct is unacceptable in the legal profession as they are believed to influence the decision of verdicts.

In a notice dated January 31, 2024, the GLC said while defending the state against a suit by Mr Woyome in 2011, Mr Nerquaye-Tetteh personally caused the direct transfer of an amount of GH¢400,000 from Mr Woyome to the bank account of his wife.

According to the GLC, Mr Nerquaye-Tetteh could however not offer any reasonable explanation for the said transfer of the GH¢400,000 into the bank account of his wife.

Mr. Woyome however says the money was a loan he advanced Mrs Nerquaye-Tetteh for her business.

Speaking on JoyFM’s TopStory on February 16, Mr. Kpebu said “It is not possible. It is not legally allowed for Mr Woyome to do what he did at the time. It is indefensible, so putting it plainly, it is against the ethics of the profession. That is how the General Legal Council found Mr Nerquaye-Tetteh liable. He needn't have done so.”

Mr Kpebu’s condemnation of the act follows Mr Woyome’s comments that he has never paid, nor will he ever pay a bribe, arguing that the state attorney is being victimised.

But Mr Kpebu insists that by the standards of the legal profession, this was wrong and no reason is good enough to justify the action.

• Read also: I’ve never and will never pay bribes – Woyome challenges GLC decision to disbar Chief State Attorney

Again, the legal practitioner added that in this instance, the best response to the matter was to be quiet. 

“If it was so genuine, it needn’t have come from M.r Woyome himself, he could have asked his friends to do that. Not when Mr Nerquarye-Tetteh had something to do with the case. There is no way he can justify it.

“Sometimes, silence is golden. You don’t need to speak. I am even wondering why Woyome is speaking because the more he speaks then the more he reminds us about how he has embarrassed us as a nation with what he did,” he added.

• Read also: Chief State Attorney expelled from the bar for allegedly accepting GH¢400K from Woyome 

Mr Kpebu added that the businessman’s humanitarian act only leaves a lot of lingering questions, including whether he has been able to fully pay the judgment debt. 

“You know, as he is even talking now if has managed to give on humanitarian grounds, the first question we should be asking is that, has he finished paying back the judgment debt? 

"You see when he speaks then he reminds us that he is taking us for fools. Has Woyome paid the judgment debt? That money that he was paid to..., you know the Supreme Court held in the civil case on review that he should refund that money.

"Has he finished paying? The last thing I knew, some of his company assets were attached and all that. But I know that he has not finished paying. So he should learn how to keep quiet. It is not always that you talk,” he added.