A-G Fires Justice Crabbe

One of Ghana�s finest legal brains, Justice VCRAC Crabbe, has been accused by the Attorney-General�s Department of a �naked usurpation of the legislative functions of Parliament�, and lawyers are currently lacing their boots to head to the Supreme Court over the matter. The A-G�s Department has further indicted Justice Crabbe of contravening the provisions of the Constitution of Ghana by making an unconstitutional alteration in the contents of the Civil Service Law in his capacity as the Statute Law Review Commissioner. The Attorney-General is claiming that when Justice Crabbe was made Commissioner of the Statute Law Review Commission, tasked to review the laws of Ghana, he usurped the powers of Parliament by giving disciplinary authority to the Civil Service Council when the original law his Commission was tasked to review actually had it that the Council had no such powers. The A-G�s Department argued that though section 79 of PNDC Law 329 says such disciplinary authority shall remain with the �Council�, it was referring to the Provisional National Defence Council; but the Statute Law Review Commissioner, Justice Crabbe, in reviewing that law interpreted �Council� to mean the Civil Service Council. The A-G�s Department noted: �The amendment of by the Statute Law Review Commission of section 79 of PNDCL 327 and other sections to read the Civil Service Council is a naked usurpation of the legislative functions of Parliament and contravenes Section 3 of the Laws of Ghana.�The Statute Law Review Commissioner (a) has made an alteration or amendment in the matter or substance of the Civil Service Law, 1993 (PNDCL) 327 contrary to section 3 of the Laws of Ghana�.(c) the Statute Law Review Commissioner�s act or omission is in contravention of the provisions of the Constitution on legislation particularly Articles 93 (2) and 106�. The grave claim was made against Justice Crabbe in an Accra Fast Track High Court during the hearing of a case between Adim Odoom, the interdicted Principal Accountant at the Ministry of Sports, and the Attorney General. Mr. Odoom is one of the two persons seeking redress in court after they were interdicted at the Sports Ministry after they blew the whistle that the then Sports Minister, Alhaji Muntaka, had committed a number of serious economic crimes. Counsel for Mr. Odoom, Godfred Dame, is claiming his client does not deserve to be on interdiction and even if he was to be, it is the Head of the Civil Service Council that is permitted by Law to institute disciplinary actions against his client, thus the President erred in instituting any such action. According to Dame, the argument from the A-G�s Department that the Civil Service Council has no disciplinary authority cannot hold unless tenable evidence is adduced to prove that indeed the review of the Statute Law Review Commission to that particular law was a contravention of the Laws of Ghana. He argued further that the Fast Track High Court has no power to determine the issues raised by the A-G�s Department concerning that act of the Statute Law Review Commissioner, and that it is the Supreme Court that has powers to determine the matter.