KWASI AFRIFA v. THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL
2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- DENNIS ADJEI JA (PRESIDING)
- ERIC KYEI BAFFOUR JA
- RICHARD ADJEI-FRIMPONG JA
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Civil Procedure
2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Richard Adjei-Frimpong JA, writing for a unanimous Court of Appeal panel also comprising Dennis Adjei JA (Presiding) and Eric Kyei Baffour JA, dismissed an appeal by a practicing lawyer challenging the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council’s refusal to halt proceedings. The appellant had pursued multiple avenues: a failed judicial review in the High Court and a pending certiorari application in the Supreme Court, and he argued that the ongoing Supreme Court matter should stay the disciplinary hearing. The Court held that Section 21 of the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32) permits appeals only upon conclusion of an inquiry, thus no interlocutory appeal lies from the Disciplinary Committee. It further held that Rule 18 of the Legal Profession (Disciplinary Committee) Rules, 2020 (L.I. 2424) expressly allows the committee to proceed notwithstanding related court actions. The Court also found the appellant’s grounds of appeal incompetent under Rule 8 and therefore dismissed the appeal.
RICHARD ADJEI-FRIMPONG JA:
The matter on appeal before us has a brief antecedent. The appellant, a practicing lawyer faces various charges involving professional misconduct before the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council, herein, the Respondent.
The particulars of the charges are not material for our decision. From all indications however, they were of such a magnitude that the appellant would want to challenge them from various judicial angles. He therefore filed a judicial review action at the High Court by which he sought to have the disciplinary proceedings against him, essentially aborted. He was unsuccessful. Unperturbed, he invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court seeking orders to quash the decision of the High Court and restrain the respondent from proceeding to conduct the hearing of the charges.
Subsequently, at the commencement of the proceedings and on appearing before the respondent, he raised a preliminary objection against the hearing, apparently on the basis of the action at the Supreme Court. His contention, put shortly was that once the suit at the Supreme Court had not been determined, it was impermissible for the respondent to go on with proceedings before it. He was to stretch his argument to the point of considering the proceedings before the respondent potentially contemptuous in the light of the action at the Supreme Court.
The respondent however overruled the preliminary objection and proceeded with the hearing. The appellant is aggrieved by the decision and appeals in this court.
The grounds of appeal as he sets them out in his notice of appeal are as follows:
“(a) The ruling/decision of the Honourable Panel cannot be supported in law.
(b) The analysis and conclusion of the Hounourable Panel have no basis in law
(c) The Honourable Panel disregarded the fundamental breaches and infractions of the basic legal principles thereby occasioning a substantial miscarriage of justice to the Accused/Appellant.”
It is at once right to have something to say about the formulation of the grounds of appeal. We however defer what we have to say to a later moment.
From the facts as laid out however, we think the prime issue in this appeal is not of any wide compass. It is simply to determine whether the pendency of the Supreme Court action stays or suspends the hearing before the respondent. That is to say, whether the respondent committed any wrong in law, in proceeding to hear the matter in the light of