6. The Attorney General's Office in the Republic until Nkrumah's Departure - The Bing - Mills-Odoi Era

We had thought that we were coming back to the bungalow on 10th Road which we left. We had been assured before we proceeded on leave that we would have it. But on our return, we found it occupied by a new entrant to the Civil Service which the Republic had brought from the private sector. Harry Nelson, had before been in the oil distribution business. But he had now been made a Principal Secretary, which was the title given to the former Permanent Secretaries under the colonial regime, to make it clear to them that there was nothing permanent about their appointment. He and his family were occupying the bungalow, he said, until appropriate accommodation was found for them. How long would it take? It was a question of days, then weeks and eventually it turned into months. Meanwhile, we stayed at one of the Resthouses in the area just south of the Ridge Hospital. But the uncertainty was becoming too distracting. So I asked for some other accommodation to be found for us. We moved into No. 46 Osu Residential Area, one of the two storey houses which Government had behind the present State House. Job 600, as it came to be called, had then not been built. We did not know then, but we got to know that these houses lie in the fault line of the earthquake zone in Accra. That intelligence was gained in macabre circumstances. We were once at a party at which one of the Government geologists was present. He was telling Stella of one area in Accra, where in an earthquake, a large number of Civil Servants would be wiped out, especially as the double storey housing there had no steel reinforcement. On Stella asking which area was, she learnt that it was the area in which we lived. There was an earthquake while we were there. It occurred when our son, Ralph, was a baby. Happily, we survived.

The Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office was still by the old Secretariat building but we were soon to move to the present site by the old American Embassy building. My return in September, 1960 almost coincided with the arrival in the Office of Justice George Commey Mills-Odoi, who had been appointed a judge of the High Court on 1 January 1960, as the Solicitor General; Akilano Akiwumi, Charles Crabbe, Eardley Glasgow and myself were Senior State Attorneys. Festus Amarteifio joined the Judge Advocate General's Department. Obviously, the move of Mills Odoi was in preparation of him taking over the Attorney-Generalship when Bing eventually left. Mills Odoi was not the first Ghanaian appointed to understudy Bing. Kweku Boateng had occupied the position of Deputy Attorney General before. Most of us dreaded the day when he would take over from Bing, because, although a number of the Ghanaian officers did not like Bing, the general impression was that Kweku Boateng's appointment would not be an improvement. Bing's fortunes, according to the ongoing rumours, fluctuated from the highs when he was most in need in his position, and the lows when his antagonists among the Ghanaian political establishment gained in ascendancy. When a Minister of Justice was appointed it was now Aaron Ofori Atta, no more Ako Adjei whom Bing found it difficult to work with. At the first opportunity, the new Solicitor General, in an obvious reference to the fact that I had been asked before I went on leave to join the drafting section, told me of the expatriate senior officers' design to show up Ghanaians as incompetent to man the posts by shifting them around at short intervals, and then declaring that they were not capable of performing their allocated assignments. He advised that I should be careful of such moves.

I was met on our return from Finland by a mixture of work. The new Supreme Court had been created under the Republican Constitution as the final appellate Court. Appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council were abolished, although a limited time was allowed for appeals pending before the Committee to be disposed of. The hierarchy of the Superior Courts was the Supreme Court and the High Court. The new Courts Act had also given a right of appeal to cases decided by the High Court generally, thus removing the monetary limitation placed by the previous legislation on the right of appeal from the High Court to the Supreme Court. The appeals on the habeas corpus and prerogative writs cases which had been disallowed on my submission to the Court of Appeal were no more authority for appeals to the Supreme Court. Under the new dispensation, Attoh Okine and his co-petitioners appealed once more to the Supreme Court. But they were met by the point that the provision granting a right of appeal was not retrospective. But Baffuor Osei Akoto, whose habeas corpus case had been disposed of by the High Court not so long before the Republican Constitution, had his chance to appeal in the hall-mark case which disposed of the law argued in the High Court on these cases.

In my book on The Contribution of the Courts to Government: A West African View, I stated the position. My exposition of the circumstances and arguments made in the Akoto appeal in that book is derived largely from [the words at pages 170 et. seq. of that book].

The appellate court's pronouncement in the Akoto Case was made in August 1961. The first application for habeas corpus arising from a detention order had been disposed of in January 1959. That the Court of Appeal was not heard all this time on the question of detention was not due to the usual delays in appeals. The Court had itself decided that it had no right to speak on the matter. Without guidance from the Court, each High Court judge had been free to go his own way on the subject. But in several cases brought, the judges were consistent in denying habeas corpus on the ground that an order of the executive made under the Act was not reviewable. Justice Adumua-Bossman in the Dumoga Case went even further to hold that habeas corpus was not a remedy available in Ghana, there being no local legislation on it and the British Act of 1891, which had hitherto been thought to apply to Ghana, being inapplicable. In spite of the silence of the appellate court, that was the only issue on which the judges had not spoken with one voice. An appeal had, indeed, been brought in the Okine Case in April 1960. A preliminary point was raised by me as counsel for the Government that the Court of Appeal had no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal from a ruling in a habeas corpus application. Ever since appeals were thought of for the country, an effort had been made to ensure that only cases of some substance went before the appellate court. One device for achieving this purpose was the attachment of a monetary value to the type of case that could go on appeal. The Court of Appeal Ordinance 1957 which reproduced verbatim the formula which was used in the West African Court of Appeal Ordinance of 2935 provided that an appeal lay from the Divisional Court to the Court of Appeal: “from all final judgments and decisions given in respect of a claim exceeding the sum of one hundred pounds or determining directly or indirectly a claim or question respecting money, goods or other property or any civil right or other matter above the amount or value of one hundred pounds.”

For the first time, the question was raised about its terms covering an appeal in a habeas corpus case. Though that involved a civil right, that right was not calculable in terms of money and yet the jurisdiction of the court had been limited even on civil rights questions in such terms. The Court accepted this strict interpretation of the section and ruled itself without jurisdiction.

The right of appeal in habeas corpus cases was thereafter given with the changes that accompanied the adoption of the Republican Constitution in July 1960. By then, the Court of Appeal had declined jurisdiction in two more cases.

Together with the promulgation of the Republican Constitution, a new Courts Act was passed which included, in the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the hearing of appeals from the decision of the High Court in any criminal or civil matter and “the hearing of appeals from any decision of the High Court in any other matter whatsoever...” It was under this provision that the Akoto Case came before the Supreme Court. But by this time, the Constitution had raised an even more fundamental question: that of the constitutional validity of the Preventive Detention Act itself. The Constitution obliged the new President to make a Declaration of Fundamental Principles on accepting office. Among the principles which the President was required to adhere to were the following: “That freedom and justice should be honoured and maintained. That no person should suffer discrimination on the ground of sex, race, tribe, religion or political belief. That subject to such restrictions as may be necessary for preserving public order, morality or health, no person should be deprived of the freedom of religion or speech, of the right to move and assemble without hindrance or of the right of access to the courts of law.”

There was no formal Bill of Rights or express provision in the Constitution on the Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the citizen. The argument advanced on behalf of the detainees in this connection was that the Preventive Detention Act had become unconstitutional with the promulgation of this Constitution because the Act conflicted with the terms of the Declaration, especially those which required that freedom and justice should be honoured and maintained and that no person should suffer discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, tribe religion or political belief. The detentions, according to the argument, were ordered only because of the political beliefs of the detainees and deprived them of their freedom of movement and their right of access to the courts of law. These arguments were presented by leading Counsel for the detainees, Dr. J. B. Danquah. There was a strong rumour that the brief for the arguments had been prepared by an American lawyer then teaching constitutional law in Ghana, Dr. Pauli Murray, who together with former Senator Leslie Rubin, of South Africa, wrote and published in 1961, The Constitution and Government of Ghana. The argument in court so heavily relied on the American constitutional approach that it lent some credence to the rumour. Indeed, he argued that with a written Constitution, the courts of Ghana ought to depart from viewing constitutional matters in the manner of the English courts where there was no constitution. Ghana now had a written Constitution and its courts should look at constitutional interpretation in the way that countries with written constitutions do.

The State was represented by the Attorney-General, Geoffrey Bing, for whom I acted as junior. Bing's argument was that subject to the specific limitations placed by the Constitution, Parliament was supreme and could make any law that it wished. An example of such specific limitations was the inability of Parliament to alter any of the entrenched articles unless there had been a referendum in which the proposed amendment had been approved by the people. But there was no provision in the Constitution to the effect that the power of Parliament was limited by the President's Declaration of Fundamental Principles. Further, he drew attention to the fact that the Principles always used the expression “should” instead of the normal mandatory legislative “shall”. There were certain Principles which could not be enforced by a judicial decision, for example, the Principle “That every citizen of Ghana should receive a fair share of the produce yielded by the development of the country.” How, he asked rhetorically, was this to be enforced by the courts? Finally he likened the obligation imposed on the President by the Fundamental Principles to the British Coronation Oath which was taken “not to enable the courts to hold back an Act of Parliament which violated it as illegal but to provide a moral and political yardstick by which the conduct of the Crown could be judged. The sanction, if the oath was violated, was the extra-legal one that the monarch might lose his throne as a result.”

The argument raged for days. In the event, the judgment was a disappointment; it simply accepted the arguments of the Attorney-General without going in detail into some of the most complex issues raised. For example, there was the argument that even if the expression “should” instead of “shall” is used, how does that rationalise with the fact that the President had a power of veto of Bills passed by the National Assembly?

Apart from appeal cases, I was involved in odd assignments which landed on the Department. I thought that I had escaped being sent to the Congo by Geoffrey Bing during the Congo crisis in 1960 by being away in Finland. But I did not escape the fall-out from the Congo crisis altogether. My connection with it was in Ghana after our soldiers who had been serving there had mutinied in Tskikapa~[ Tshikapa suggested, check ]~ and had almost killed their commander, Brigadier (he subsequently became an Admiral of the Ghana Navy) David Animle Hansen. Of course, I had heard the news of the mutiny but I did not know that I was to have any involvement in it until I was, as usual, summoned by Bing. He told me that I should go to Burma Camp and see General Alexander, who was in command of the Ghana Armed Forces, who needed my assistance. The General, when I saw him, was seething with anger. He had the reputation of being the youngest officer appointed to the rank of General in the British Army and that did not make him popular with a number of people. In this regard, I must confess that I had some sympathy for him as I suffered from the same syndrome. The cause of his anger was not difficult to fathom and this was soon confirmed by the British officers under his command whom I saw soon after; the mutiny of his troops had at last blotted his copy-book. He told me that there had been the mutiny in Tsikapa;~[ Tshikapa, (Uncle Roger thinks) ]~ that this was a most disgraceful thing to happen in an army; and he wanted a quick court-martial to deal with the case so that the ring-leaders involved could be shot. That, he said, would restore discipline among the troops. I was impressed that he had decided the result of the contemplated court martial already. I asked him of the evidence which indicated who was involved in the mutiny. That was why he needed me, I should find the evidence from those soldiers who had been involved and organise a court martial for their trial and sentence.

I got out of the General's office thinking of how to approach this problem. I decided that I should use the same method of evidence gathering which I had used in the Akim-Abuakwa enquiry in this case. I summoned the officers who were at Tsikapa with the troops as soon after the interview with General Alexander as possible that morning. They had by now been repatriated to Ghana. The second in command to Brigadier Hansen, later Admiral Hansen of the Ghana Navy,~[ repetition earlier ]~ was Major Murphy(?), a British army officer serving with the Ghana forces. There were other British officers, one of whom was a Welshman, Captain Watkin-Williams. There were some Ghanaian officers under them. I asked them whether any preliminary investigation had been done into the causes and cause of the mutiny. None had been made. I asked them to each write out for me his movements, or lack thereof, on the day leading to the mutiny and what he did during the course of the mutiny until it was over. They asked when their efforts at essay-writing should be submitted. I knew of the General's desire to have a quick court-martial, I had been shocked at the fact that no preliminary enquiry had been made by anybody since the events in the Congo and the repatriation of the soldiers to Ghana. I told them that I wanted the statements the very first thing in the morning when I came back. There was consternation among the officers. They had not thought of devoting the afternoon to any serious work. Some of them, especially the expatriate officers had promised to take their wives to the beach that afternoon. I gathered then that in the afternoons, the officers did no work but occupied themselves as they wished. I was unrelenting; I asked those with commitments to their wives to apologise to them and to explain that there was an emergency and I wanted the statements by the morning. They knew I had the backing of the General and they demurred. I left them looking quite unhappy.

Back in the A.G.'s office, I sought assistance for taking the statements of the ordinary ranks and I got some Police Officers assigned to me. The next day, I was impressed that the statements of the army officers were ready. I started with my assistants taking the statements of the soldiers and piecing together the evidence of officers and other ranks. The story which emerged was that the soldiers had been stationed in Tsikapa in the K***~[ Kasu suggested by Uncle Roger ]~ Province of the Congo, where there was not much for them to do. They were trained men who understood when they left Ghana that they were going to fight in the Congo. But here they were, there was no battle to fight; they were at this post with practically nothing to do; they had money which some of them used in purchasing hemp; because they had money, the local women gathered round their camp and were smuggled into the camp, with some of them staying overnight. There was some evidence that venereal disease was on the increase. Brigadier Hansen who was in command of the troops there, was a great disciplinarian who wanted to keep his soldiers on the alert at all times. He wanted to stop the smuggling of the women into the camp and to reduce, if not stamp out, the incidence of venereal disease. In the conditions in which the soldiers saw themselves, they did not appreciate the point of this discipline. With regard to the women who came into the camp, there were stories from the soldiers of the Brigadier walking into their tents in the middle of the night to find out which of them were with women and punishing them for it. Resentment gradually mounted against the Brigadier.

According to the soldiers, the straw which broke the camel's back was the instruction which they received that their unit back in Ghana was being transferred from Kumasi to Tamale. But the soldiers were not to be sent back to Ghana to do their own packing of their properties before the transfer. When they asked to be allowed to do so, they were told that their wives would do so for them. This had infuriated the soldiers. They complained that according to custom, their wives could not pack their belongings for them. Their complaints were ignored. To me who often had my things packed by my wife before I travelled, this complaint was very strange. But I respected the grievance of the soldiers, if this was what they felt, and recorded it faithfully. This was what apparently made the soldiers favour a plan that they rebel against the tyranny of their commander.

It emerged that the leader of the mutiny was a Nigerian by the name of Sam Oyategun who had joined the Ghana forces. He was a Sergeant and a big and commanding personality. We did not get much detail on the planning of the mutiny and the story of the course it took was also blurred. But on the night in question, the soldiers, led by Oyategun, decided to rebel against authority. It was clear that they were out to get Brigadier Hansen, because, when he appeared, a group of them attacked him and beat him up with the butts of their rifles until he lay motionless and they left him for dead. That the soldiers' anger against authority did not extend beyond their commanding officer was evidenced by the fact that in the attack on Brigadier Hansen, his second in command, Major Murphy(?) tried several times to intervene to get them to stop. Each time he entered into the fray, he was told to stay out and was picked up physically by Oyategun and thrown out of the midst of the melee. There was no other injury done to him. There had been drinking before this attack, which continued throughout the night. Most of the officers at the camp did not distinguish themselves that night. Several wrote in their own hand about how they tried to avoid confrontation with the soldiers, with some of them throwing off their uniforms which would give them away and hiding.

The drinking and rampaging among the soldiers continued after Hansen throughout the night. Lt. Col. J.Y. Asase, who was in another camp at the time the mutiny started, seemed to me the most distinguished officer who came to the camp, went around the various groups and collections of soldiers and managed to talk to and calm them down and that the overall commander in the Congo, General Joe Michel, was on his way to talk to the soldiers. It was an impressive performance. By the time Michel arrived, the soldiers had been gathered at the airport and whether because they were exhausted by the events of the evening, or they had become more sober and contrite I do not know, but they were reasonably quiet by the time Michel arrived. His performance was by all accounts brilliant. He upbraided the soldiers for behaviour which was disgraceful and unbecoming of their uniform as soldiers. The soldiers listened to him in silence. At the end of this dressing down, he told them they were being sent home in dishonour. The soldiers took their verbal lashing meekly. There was no doubt about the position of leadership that he enjoyed with the soldiers. I was sure that he was destined to lead the armed forces of Ghana one day. But alas this was not to be so. He died some time after his return in the north after the aircraft he was travelling on caught fire on landing. Sergeant Oyategun and several of his colleagues who were identified as involved in the battering of their commanding officer, were after my investigations, tried by full court martial for the mutiny and the aggravated injury inflicted to Hansen. Most of them were already under arrest by this time. However, it was clear after the interval of time that, even if found guilty, General Alexander's desire for a few leaders to be shot as an example to the rest, was not likely to be realised. After conviction, Oyategun was given a fifteen year sentence and his companions got lesser sentences.

The happiest event for me occurred in 1961. Our son, Ralph, was born on the 12 of August. I have earlier related the difficulties we had had in having children. In Finland we had been patients of the famous gynecologist, Dr. Johan Johanssen. We continued with his prescription when we returned to Ghana in September 1960. We could not have been more delighted when Ralph was born. We had hoped that he would be born on 8 August, Stella's mother's birthday. But he was late. In the end he had to be induced. Our lives took a different turn. From then on, there was a very important third member. We described him as “Krunprinsen” which is the Swedish for the Crown Prince. Ralph's arrival did not affect the nature of my work. The odd assortment of cases which came my way eventually took me for the first time to Geneva in 1961. Like my visit to South Africa, my call to travel was sudden and unexpected. It happened a few weeks after Ralph was born. My mother lived with us which enabled us occasionally to go out in the evenings. Stella and I were getting ready for one such outing on a Friday night when I thought I saw on the street in front of our house, a blue Jaguar car like Bing's crawling slowly along. I said to Stella that there was a car like Bing's creeping on the road as if looking for a house, and that I hoped it was not Bing looking for me. To my relief, the car passed by. But the relief was only temporary. The car returned and drove slowly into our house. True enough, it was Geoffrey Bing. He had in tow the Commissioner of Labour, Nettey, who was carrying a hefty load of files. I told Stella that our dinner was over and went down to meet them.

I went down to meet them. ~[repetition]~ Geoffrey greeted me breezily and told me that I had to go to Geneva. When was this, I asked. Tomorrow, he said. Your passage is already booked and all arrangements had been made. He spent a little time telling me what it was all about. Once more the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had messed up things. Bing had for some time been waging a battle with the Ministry to keep the Attorney-General's Office informed of matters which were likely to have legal implications and, generally, for the A.G.'s Office to act as the Ministry's legal advisers just as they acted in that same capacity for all the other Ministries. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had always played things close to its chest, only calling on the AG when, according to him, the Ministry needed to be rescued from situations which were almost beyond retrieval. This mission on which I was being sent was one such example. Ghana, he explained, had charged Portugal with forced labour practices before the International Labour Organization. The charge was laid by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without notice to the Attorney-General. The ILO then had appointed a high-powered Committee, consisting of M. Max Ruegger, a former President of the International Red Cross; M. Amand Ugon, a Uruguayan who had served on the International Court of Justice, and; Isaak Forster, a Chief Justice of Senegal, who was also later to serve on the ICJ, to hear the charge. The case was being heard at the very moment by the ILO Committee in Geneva. ~[ deletion suggested check ]~ The Ghana case was being conducted by the Ambassador to Switzerland, Major Seth Anthony, with support from his Ministry. Major Anthony had had a brilliant military career during the Second World War. He had fought in Burma, where he became a legend to his troops. He had risen to the highest rank that a citizen of the Gold Coast attained during the war. He later was one of the earliest administrative officers after Dr. Busia and Mr. A.L. Adu to the Gold Coast Civil Service. But he was not a lawyer. When Ghana, the State preferring the charges against Portugal, was called upon to call its witnesses, Ghana was not ready with any. Our position, apparently was that we had levelled the charge, after complaints had been made by a number of Angolan and Mozambican freedom fighters, had complained to the Ghana Government. They had faithfully promised to appear to bear witness if any tribunal was set up by the ILO to enquire into the matter. But by the time they were required for the enquiry, according to our Foreign Ministry, they had all disappeared, having been given scholarships to study in American academic institutions. That was why we had not been able to produce any witnesses. The Committee adopted the unusual practice of then calling upon Portugal to call its witnesses to refute the charge. Some witnesses had already been called; but Portugal was about to close its case either on the following Monday or Tuesday, because it had only about two more witnesses to call and the Committee had indicated that at the close of the case for Portugal, if Ghana's witnesses were not available, the hearing would be closed. In desperation, Ambassador Anthony had called for assistance from the Attorney General, that was why I had to go. Geoffrey then handed me a Presidential Authority empowering me to deal with the case as I saw fit and to call any witness from any part of the world and to incur any necessary expense to bring him before the Committee. It was signed by Tawiah Adamafio, then Minister for Presidential Affairs. My ticket for Geneva would be given to me by Nettey. Then he left the two of us so that Nettey would brief me in greater detail about the case, and I could study the files, quite heavy which Nettey had with him. Nettey left me with the files and necessary papers.

It is relevant to recapitulate the African political scene at this time before proceeding further with the narrative. The major colonial powers in Africa since the Berlin Conferences in the 1880s were Britain, France and Germany. Germany lost its colonial territories after the First World War (1914-1918), with Tanganyika being put by the League of Nations under a mandate administered by the British; both Cameroon and Togoland being divided between the British and the French; and South-West Africa (now Namibia) being put under British mandate, but practically administered by South Africa. These mandates, especially, the one over South-West Africa, were to create their own problems at the time preceding each country's independence. But for the time being, they strengthened the colonial territories administered by the respective imperial powers. Belgium held Congo, which became Zaire sometime after independence and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Portugal had taken its share of Africa in the domination of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau). Each of the imperial powers can be criticised for its participation in the subjection of Africa to its rule and the various acts of human disrespect and degradation which its peoples were made to suffer. Each could be criticised for the economic and social deprivation and retardation which its policies directly or indirectly inflicted on the peoples they ruled. Some of the administrations, however, were more liberal and at times more enlightened than others. The Belgians have been condemned for establishing the most brutal and repressive regime in the Congo. The Portuguese did not fare much better. At the time Ghana made its charge, Portugal had been ruled for years by the dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. It practised a system in its colonies whereby a few select Africans could become “assimilados” and be assimilated to Portuguese society. But the rest of the African population were kept in conditions of poverty and degradation. Ghana had become independent some three or four years before, practising a radical foreign policy insisting on the total freedom of the whole of Africa as an imperative. It will be recalled that at independence, Nkrumah declared that Ghana's independence was meaningless unless the whole of Africa was liberated. It was quite well known by Africanists before but, since independence, reports had been coming in regularly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, especially the African Affairs Secretariat which as its name made clear specialised in Africa; was located at Nkrumah's office at Flagstaff House and was directly under his control, that Portugal had been using forced labour practices in its African colonies. It was as a result of these reports that Ghana brought the charges before the ILO against Portugal. The irritation of the Attorney-General's Office was not because it lacked sympathy with the charges that had been made but because it had been kept out of the proceedings until this late hour. On the following day, that is, on Saturday, after the instructions from Bing and the consultation with Nettey, I left for Geneva, with Adelaide Nana Wood, Legal Counsel in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Accra, to take up the case for Ghana. There we met the legendary Major Anthony, who briefed us on status of the case. Ghana was indeed in a difficult position. There was every likelihood that the Portuguese defence would be finished on Monday and Ghana would be called upon by the Committee to call its witnesses, of whom there was at that moment none. So we started going through the possible names from which we could draw some support. The Angolans and Mozambicans who had originally made the charges to the Ghana Government were not available. But there was the possibility if we could only get them of some Catholic priests who had served in both countries and who could confirm what the Angolans and Mozambicans had said. Where could they be found? There were one or two in Germany. There may be a few in Britain and, of course, there was the famous British author on Africa, Basil Davidson. We got on the phone and started phoning around to these people. We told them of Ghana's position before the ILO Committee: about the charges, how they came to be made, how the witnesses had disappeared, how the Committee in order to accommodate Ghana had taken the unusual course of calling upon Portugal to deny the charge and how Portugal was about to exhaust its witnesses on the Monday and Ghana called upon to substantiate the charge or to shut up. We told them that we still had no witnesses but we understood that they had served or had experience of the Portuguese African territories and would welcome them to come before the Committee to tell it what they knew. Their fares, hotel and other expenses would be covered. To our surprise and delight, a number of them were prepared to get on the train or a plane the next day or early Monday morning to come to Geneva. Apart from the priests, we got, at their suggestion, a couple of Angolan/Mozambican students studying in Germany to agree to come to give evidence. I thought that the clergymen as witnesses were a very good find: they were non-African, independent of the ongoing battle between the Portuguese administration and the African freedom fighters from the Portuguese colonies and they were following a profession which normally suggested truthfulness.

From having no witnesses to produce, by Monday, we had about six or seven. I was in a robust frame of mind. At the sitting of the Committee, I announced that I was taking over the handling of Ghana's case, and introduced Nana Wood as my junior. The Portuguese indeed had about two more witnesses to call. But I had decided to cross-examine them at length, so that by the time they had finished, a substantial part of the Monday would be over. That would allow time for our witnesses to assemble and be ready, most of them on Tuesday, to give their evidence. I had practical experience in the difference between the Anglo-American and the European continental systems of eliciting evidence from witnesses. The procedure which had been followed so far was for the witness called by the Portuguese Government to give his evidence which was not much different from evidence-in-chief. Then he was questioned, usually in a polite manner on a few questions on which the members of the Committee wanted enlightenment. There was nothing like the full-blooded cross-examination with which lawyers of the Anglo-American tradition were familiar. There were areas in the evidence of the Portuguese officials which, to me, sounded incredible; for example, their apparent lack of knowledge, as senior officers of the colonial administration in the labour and prison services of practices which, from the files and the conversations of our witnesses, were common and notorious. The press-ganging of Africans who did not belong to the assimilado class to labour in farms, the beating of difficult and recalcitrant Africans with the “palmatorio”: a heavy wooded instrument with a flat round end punched with holes to allow air to pass from the area of impact, and as a result inflicted more pain or otherwise. I had a palmatorio hidden under my desk and I was prepared to confront any Portuguese officer who claimed not to have seen or heard of it by producing and giving a demonstration of how I understood it was used for the witness to deny. My cross-examination was, therefore, lengthy and at some points, quite dramatic.

Far from accepting the implausible answers given by the Portuguese officials to the questions put to them by the members of the Commission, I rather probed the truthfulness of the answers given. The first witness called complained in an injured tone to the Chairman of the Commission that I was attacking his honesty and integrity. The Commission asked me to moderate my questions. I promised to try. After a while, the witness again complained. The Commission said I was ignoring their caution. I said the enquiry into the truthfulness of the witness's assertions was necessary to Ghana's case but if the Commission did not want me to question the witness, I would sit down and made to do so. The Commissioners looked embarrassed; they had not intended to stop me from questioning the witness as I thought fit. From then on, there was no further complaint and no reprimand from the Commissioners for my manner of cross-examination. In the course of it, I produced the palmatorio, which the witness had disclaimed knowledge of, from under my desk and asked him whether he had never seen such an instrument before. I do not think anybody believed his denial. I went through the questioning of the remaining Portuguese witness, of whom I recall more than two were called, in the same manner without any complaint. By the end of their case, I was quite satisfied that I had laid sufficient ground for the evidence of the witnesses I was now ready to call. I did and their evidence went down quite well. The general feeling among the Ghanaian delegation at the conclusion of the evidence, was that Ghana had not been disgraced. The case was adjourned to a date to be notified for the writing of the Commission's report.

I recall we had a dinner with the witnesses who had come at such a short notice to rescue us from our predicament. Every one was in good spirits. I found Basil Davidson most congenial. He was most impressed with Major Anthony, especially of the fact that the Ambassador had, as a colonial, reached the same rank as he did in the Second World War.

I was also invited to tea by the great Wilfred Jenks, who had written so much on International Law issues and was then the Deputy Director General of the Organisation. The Director General, who was absent from Geneva at the time was David Morse, the American who after retirement formed the distinguished international firm of Surrey & Morse. Jenks had written extensively on international law, with special reference to labour matters. Indeed, he had devoted most of his life to the building up of the ILO, and he must have felt at this time that his life's work was threatened with potential disintegration if Ghana's conduct, which I was actively assisting, were to be repeated by other countries. Our tea, therefore, was somewhat frosty, being permeated by this undercurrent of suspicion.

Among friends in Geneva, was Gilbert Tetteh Addy, an old Achimotan who was then with the information section of the ILO. I believe because of his name “Tetteh” friends called him “Tee”. He later returned to Ghana to work for Ghana Broadcasting but he did not last long and returned to Europe. He was very kind. He showed me round Geneva and entertained me well. On hearing of the birth of Ralph, he gave him a lovely toy which played a tune whenever it was set off. I brought it back to Ralph and we all enjoyed this toy. But one day it appeared not to respond to the usual prompting and I was taking it apart to find out what was wrong when one spring in it shot out. However much I looked around, I could not find this spring. And that was the sad end of a very nice thought. From Tetteh Addy, I learnt how upset the ILO establishment was over Ghana bringing the proceedings against Portugal. I saw him again when I was next in Geneva to take the “judgment” of the Committee. But when he left, much to my regret, I lost touch with him.

We were summoned back to Geneva in the first half of 1962 to receive the Committee's report. The Committee had written a diplomatic document which went down heavily on Ghana on the few times that it found that Ghana had done anything wrong and was quite gentle in its criticisms of the Portuguese authorities. But overall, Ghana achieved its objective in so far as the Committee found that the practices of Portugal in its African colonial territories were not up to the standards of the ILO and gave Portugal a period of six months within which to report improvements. It was quite clear that, if it had not found Portugal at fault, it would have imposed that obligation on its government.

I had a strange encounter on this second visit to Geneva with Ernie Gross, the American international lawyer, who would have been my mentor if Bing's plans of placing me in the firm of Curtis, Mallett Prevost, Colt & Mosle, to which he belonged over the Namibian case before the International Court of Justice had materialised. I suddenly ran into him in the corridors of the ILO. What was he doing there? He blamed me for the naughty precedent I had set in the case brought by Ghana against Portugal. Portugal had apparently tried to find some Ghanaian practice which could amount to forced labour practice to haul Ghana again before the ILO for, but had failed. So Portugal chose to go against Liberia on some charges of forced labour practices and Ernie Gross was there to defend Liberia.

Before I left for Geneva the second time, I had what turned out to be my last drive with Geoffrey Bing as Attorney-General. He asked me to give him a lift as he was at the time without his car. He was in a reflective mood. He told me that it was getting to the time when he felt he would cease to be Attorney-General and now he felt that it was a matter of weeks rather than months and, perhaps, of days rather than weeks. He had, he said, been very close to Nkrumah, ever since the latter's student days, and he had always been supportive of the President who often called on him for advice. But now he was the only white face which appeared at Cabinet meetings. At times when Nkrumah faced disagreement from his Ministers, he would turn round to him and ask whether he (Bing) did not agree with him (Nkrumah). He said that put him in an invidious unpopular position with the Cabinet members. It was clear that he wanted to bid me farewell as the end of his days as Attorney General had come. I was, therefore, not surprised when about a week later, on my way back from Geneva, after having received the report of the ILO Committee, I read in the papers in the departure lounge at Heathrow Airport in London, where I was transiting, that Geoffrey Bing had ceased to be Attorney-General of Ghana. As he had been loathed during his tenure of office by the British press, the mood of writing was one of gloating.

I knew I would meet a changed situation in the Office on my return. I had worked closely with Bing. I knew that his successor would use other lieutenants. But just as I had not invited Bing to use my services, I was not going to do anything about getting into the good books of his successor, unless he thought I could supply him with the assistance he needed.

Bing was a complex character. Many found him repulsive. Indeed, he was not altogether a pleasant man. Most of his Ghanaian political associates hated him. For quite some time he took no leave out of Ghana. This was attributed, by some, to his fear that he would lose his job once he left the country. Even Stella disliked him. But that was mainly because in my earlier years at the Office, he made several promises about jobs which would take me abroad long before my first emergency visit to Geneva: acquiring experience in the Attorney General's Department in a State like Oregon; working with Ernest Gross in New York on the Namibian question before the ICJ; working on the Law of the Sea project; visiting potentially interested States to drum up support for the World Without the Bomb conference, none of which materialised. By coincidence, these promises always came when he had some difficult assignment for me to do at home. But I regarded him with a mixture of admiration, amusement and reserve. He had one of the fastest moving brains that I have ever come across. His solutions came almost as fast as the problems cropped up. There, I think, lay his value to Nkrumah who at the height of his powers, wanted to be able to pronounce on any world problem. Bing was there to advise him on the position to take, and how to express it. The advice, always plausible at the time that it was given, might turn out wrong some time later. But the point is that, at the time that it was needed, he did not hesitate or ask for time to think. He was not only fast with answers, he had a very fertile brain. He wrote well, with an elegant choice of phrase. He worked hard and was fast with results. Although he often managed to come across on social occasions as a bore, he was a delightful raconteur. I was always fascinated by his war time experiences. Knowing remarks were made about his Eastern ancestry and these seemed to derive some support from his looks. But I thought from the stories that he told of his war service that his face was shot up and had to be reconstructed by plastic surgery. That was supported by the fact that he had the habit of passing his fingers over his face as if to assure himself that it was still there.

I am sure I am not the only voice amongst the Ghanaian officers in the Department during his time who would say that he did more for the Department than any other Attorney General we knew. He fought for and had enacted the principle that promotions in the public service must be on merit. That was a principle which Ghanaians, who come from a culture which respects old age, fully accepted. Every recommendation for promotion which did not follow seniority had, during my period in Government service to be justified by the strongest possible reasons or it would fail to gain acceptance. It was refreshing to find a person who was not hide-bound by official procedures as the head of our Department. Finding a poor library, he built it up to a decent reference library which was found useful not only by the lawyers of the office but by the judges of the courts and the private practitioners allowed to use it. Never having been a colonial civil servant, he did not feel bound by the rules which inhibited colonial civil servants like Patterson. Where Patterson bought five books, Bing wanted to buy hundreds in a year. I remember the contrast in their approach. In 1956-57, Patterson asked all members of the Department to recommend books to be bought for the library. The library was then in a deplorable state; it did not have the most basic books which we needed. Being fresh from school, as it were, I wrote down quite a long list of books which I thought we needed. Others submitted lists as well. To my surprise, the Attorney General approved of the purchase of only five books, one of them being on “General Average”, a subject which I am sure the office had not been troubled with during his tenure or, as far as I could gather, ever. Bing, on the other hand, encouraged us to put on our lists as many books as we could think of. Never mind if the Department did not have the vote for them. When I pointed out to him that we would be embarrassed by not being able to pay for the books from our vote, he merely said we should go ahead and order the books and see if Government would not find the money to pay for them. Government did find the money.

He managed to have the salaries of officers in the Department untied from the salaries of administrative officers and tied to the somewhat higher salaries of judicial officers. In his view, the officers in the establishment department who so strongly resisted such a move did not know anything about cost-accounting. They would rather see the salaries of the lawyers in his Department at such unrealistic levels, having regard to what compensation lawyers otherwise get, with the result that recruitment to the Department became impossible, then make a plea with the authorities to recruit from abroad. But the money that they paid for the passages of officers recruited from abroad and for their families, the higher salaries that they were paid, the education allowances for their children and leave passages, was money which could be saved for the benefit of the State if the remuneration of Ghanaian officers of the Department were made satisfactory so that recruitment from abroad became unnecessary.

He created the drafting section of the Department which has trained so many draftsmen for so many countries in the developing Commonwealth countries. Today, the legal draftsmen of Botswana, Swaziland, Mauritius, Uganda, The Virgin Islands are all products of that section. He brought some interesting people to work in the Department. After independence, he brought out the United Kingdom First Parliamentary Counsel, Sir Granville Ram(?),~[* check ]~ to Ghana to advise on the setting up of a Parliamentary Counsel's office. There was a recommendation that this office should be set up as part of the Speaker's Office in Parliament. This, of course, did not please Bing, who would, in that case have lost control of the legal drafting which the Attorney General had been responsible for, even if this function was discharged by one legal draftsman, since the first decade of the century when he took it over from the Chief Justice. On that recommendation, he fought for and won a delay. But other recommendations of the First Parliamentary Counsel led to the assignment of Anthony Stainton, later himself to become First Parliamentary Counsel in England, and to receive a knighthood, to set up a Parliamentary drafting section in the Attorney General's Department and to train Ghanaians in the craft of drafting. With the establishment of that section, Charles Crabbe, who is now in charge of the training of legal draftsmen on behalf of the Commonwealth Secretariat, was assigned to it. Anthony Stainton was followed by Francis Bennion, also from the Parliamentary Draftsman's Office in England. Francis Bennion was largely responsible for the drafting of the 1960 Republican Constitution of Ghana. He wrote a book on it but shortly after publication, the coup of 1966 took place and the Constitution was suspended. It was never re-instated. He, in turn, was succeeded by Ian Evans, my former tutor at Oxford. But although Bing recruited Ian, by the time he arrived, Bing had been succeeded as Attorney General by George Commey Mills Odoi and Ian's functions were practically confined to the drafting of subsidiary legislation. Ian was the last of the line of these draftsmen.

Bing brought other interesting personalities to Ghana. Not all of these came to work for the Department. Among those who worked for the Department, were Patrick Atiyah, recently retired as Professor of English Law at Oxford University, an acknowledged authority on Contract Law in the English speaking world, and Vincent Grogan, for many years the Director of Statute Law Revision in the Republic of Ireland. Both were impressive additions to the Department. I believe Patrick was at that time finding it difficult to be accepted by the establishment in the older Universities in Britain. He had a manner which suggested that in his view, acknowledged personalities of the establishment needed their egos deflated. Others, who had not touched the brilliance of his degrees at Oxford were taken where he was turned down. I have seen him perform at a seminar of the Law Commission on strict liability in negligence when he managed to suggest that some Law Lords present were talking nonsense. While he was in Ghana, he advised on contract questions; we, for example, worked together in the negotiation of the Tema Oil Refinery agreement with Bing. But surprisingly, his most substantial contribution was in the drafting of the 1961 Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, on which he did much work. Vincent helped out in the drafting of the Constitutional Acts, which accompanied the 1960 Constitution, and trained some of the Ghanaian draftsmen. Both Chinery Hesse and Kofi Tetteh worked with him and he arranged training programmes for them in Ireland. He made the use of the simple sentence, the sentence without convolutions, in drafting the style for our draftsmen to follow. Grogan recommended to Bing a young Irish lawyer, John Temple Lang. Temple Lang was with us in the Department for some six months, then left for a short period hoping to return to Ghana thereafter. But his stay with us also became a casualty of the change from Bing to Mills Odoi as Attorney General. Temple Lang is now a Director in the Directorate General on Competition, responsible for shipping, transport and other matters, at the EEC.

Bing also brought in people like John Hearne, the first Irish Foreign minister and first Ambassador to the United States, whose term of office in the U.S. was cut short when his son was involved in a fatal accident resulting from his driving for which the American authorities wanted to prosecute. John Hearne was at the time he came to Ghana quite old. He came to join the team of legal draftsmen but he really wanted to be somewhere he could be forgotten. Outside the law, Bing caused the appointment of Dr. Alan Nunn May, the atomic scientist who was convicted of passing atomic secrets to Russian agents, after he had served his sentence in Britain, to be the Professor of Physics at the University of Ghana. Bing's philosophy in promoting such appointments, was that a country like Ghana could only get expatriates of the highest calibre if it recruits persons who are not acceptable in their own countries. Other persons apply for jobs in developing countries if they are not good enough for their own countries. On the same basis, he brought out John Lang to head the University of Ghana law Faculty and the Ghana Law School, after Lang had been forced to resign his office as the second in rank amongst the Solicitors employed by the chemical giant, ICI. Lang's wife was accused of being a communist and the British Government threatened not to give further sensitive work to the company, if it continued to employ Lang.

Apart from the personnel already mentioned, his Department welcomed people of different nationalities like Fred Boyce of New Zealand and Namasivayam of Ceylon, popularly known as “Nam”, Ernest Nicholson, who had before served in the Abingdon Council, were all drafting legislation, and Sidney Howell of Canada, who was advising on contract matters. Another Canadian came in on a short assignment to advise on the Armed Forces legislation, which was based on the Canadian legislation. Eardley Glasgow from the West Indies, who became Chief Justice of St. Lucia before his untimely death, transferred from the magisterial bench to the general section of the Department. Ulric Cross, the often decorated R.A.F. wartime flyer, who after leaving Ghana, was Director of Public Prosecutions in Tanzania and Judge in Trinidad and High Commissioner for Trinidad in London, also joined us. Ulric was so modest about his wartime flying achievements that not many people ever got to know about it in Ghana. Sidney Smith, an English lawyer who was employed to join the prosecution side, did not last long: he spent quite some time in the Accra Club, the bastion of white discrimination, from where reports soon emerged that he had been criticising Government and Bing.

This large intake of foreign lawyers did not mean that the recruitment of Ghanaians was forgotten. But as there were not many senior Ghanaian lawyers with the skills required or if they had such skills, were willing to abandon private practice for the Department, the recruitment of Ghanaians was, necessarily of young lawyers who would be trained in the Department and stay on. As I have mentioned, after I had joined the Department, Kwodwo Ebu Boison came in. He joined the general group of lawyers like myself. So did Daniel F. Annan, who took his retirement some time ago from being a judge of the Court of Appeal and has for some years now been on the Provisional National Defence Council in Ghana (PNDC) which has governed the country for nearly a decade, often deputising for the Head of State, Jerry Rawlings. Lebrecht Chinery Hesse, my cousin, who went on to head the drafting section after Charles Crabbe, and after many years in that position went successively to Sierra Leone, Zambia and Uganda as technical assistance in the speciality, into drafting. Kofi Tetteh, who has for more than ten years now been the Legal draftsman in Botswana, also joined the drafting section after a short stint with the civil law under Sidney Howell. John Abbensetts was the one lawyer of some standing at the Bar who joined the Department from his practice at Sekondi/Takoradi. He came in as Senior Crown Counsel to strengthen the civil law section. J. Kobina Taylor, who succeeded me as Director of Public Prosecutions and has recently retired from the bench in Ghana as a Supreme Court Judge; Peter Ala Adjetey, former President of the Ghana Bar Association; K. Gyeke Dako, also a former Director of Public Prosecutions both in Ghana and The Gambia, and now a judge of the High Court in Botswana, and; Samuel Mensa Boison, who is in the Court of Appeal, all joined the general section.

It was Bing's idea to have his Department represented in all the capitals of the Regions of Ghana. He came into office to find Kumasi and Cape Coast as the outside stations of the Department. He thought this was insufficient. The Police must have State lawyers at hand to give them advice both in their investigations and their prosecutions before the lower courts. Having been stationed in Kumasi not long before this suggestion was mooted, when with the assistance, to start with, of K. E. Boison but later of Dan Annan, we had run the whole of Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and the North, I doubted the wisdom of such expansion. I knew for example that the load of work from Tamale, representing the whole of the North was quite light, and asked Bing where the staff stationed in the North were going to find work to do. “Why” he answered, “We'll create work for them.” I did not hear of a shortage of work after our officers had been posted in the Regions.

The Ghana Law School also was Bing's brainchild. He had seen the services provided in the towns and villages by letter-writers; by common agreement these letter-writers were semi-literate. The letters they produced to meet their clients' instructions were often unintelligible. Bing thought in Ghana, such services would be much more improved if they were provided by trained lawyers. By trained lawyers, he did not envisage lawyers given a Rolls Royce type of education, as seemed to be the desire of most who wanted to follow the profession. A Morris Minor type of education should be adequate. He, therefore, thought that Ghana should produce so many lawyers that the work of the letter-writer in every town and village would be taken over by lawyers. The School should be the medium for the production of the required volume of lawyers. It was to be situated near the Courts and should have a more practical approach to the law than a law faculty in a University. Originally he thought it should be a school which would enrol about 300 lawyers every year. A bit concerned about the flooding of the profession by such large numbers annually, I asked him whether it was wise to increase the profession to that extent. These would be lawyers produced in the fashion once described by Robert Hayfron-Benjamin as the production of sausage lawyers; having lawyers like long strings of sausages which one cut on an annual basis depending on the number of sausages wanted. Bing's short answer to my question was to ask me who told me that that intake of 300 would survive the course every year. To get the school off on a proper footing, he invited a team of distinguished law teachers to come to Ghana to advise. Professor L. C. B. (Jim) Gower from the London School of Economics in Britain, Professor Arthur Sutherland of Harvard University, Professor Cowen from South Africa, who could not make it to Ghana, and Professor Fyzee from India formed this team.

At the opening ceremony of the Law School, Nkrumah called for the abandonment of the use of the wig which he described as “that ridiculous headgear”, as part of the lawyer's court dress. That call did not receive a sympathetic response. Lawyers protested that they themselves should be the persons to decide what attire to wear for court. About that time discussions were held by the General Legal Council, the body controlling lawyers' affairs on whether or not to abandon the wig and gown. The story goes that the London robe-makers, Ede & Ravenscroft from whom successive generations of lawyers had bought their robes, guessing the strength of opposition to abolition, sent a man down to Accra ready to take orders in case the off-white wig and black gown were, for the sake of showing our independence from British traditions, changed to a different colour like grey. The Law School was welcomed by the public with a chorus of mild ridicule. Ghanaians who have always wanted the best form of traditional education established for their country, did not appreciate a school for lawyers who would not go through the University. The premises of the Law School were, indeed, near the Courts but they were also near the Makola market, being placed half-way between the two. Its students and products became known as “Makola lawyers”. But in spite of this derogatory description, there were students keen to get a law qualification at the School and it went on for some years until the study of law in Ghana was made uniform and based at the University at Legon.

Bing brought back Jim Gower as a Commissioner to look into the modernisation of Ghana's Company Law. Gower was then a radical Professor at the London School of Economics, with many ideas for improvement of the law in England on the subject, which he had embodied in his most readable textbook. He was able to incorporate quite a number of these ideas in the new Companies Code in Ghana which was, for many years, far advanced when compared to the law of England. That was not the only area where the Ghanaian law and practice took off in advance of the English. Many of the innovations of the Criminal Procedure Code, like the summary of evidence at the preliminary hearing in committal proceedings before trial in a higher court, were part of the law in Ghana before recognition in England.

Although we, by and large profited from the technical expertise which was lent to us, it was not always easy to justify the conduct of some of these expatriates. Those who did not have anything else or anything as comfortable in their own countries or in other places to go back to wanted to establish themselves for as long as possible in Ghana. They were supposed to train the Ghanaian officers. They did not. Instead, they tried to make themselves indispensable. Some did not even want the Ghanaian officers they were working with to see what they were doing. When they went on leave, they locked their files in the safes and took away the keys on the basis that they were confidential files. By this conduct, they deepened the already existing resentment against them on the ground of their being foreign and increased the queries on the need for their presence, even more. Thus, they made the Ghanaians who disapproved of their conduct more determined to get rid of them as soon as the opportunity occurred. Lewis Rouse Jones and Sydney Howell were the worst offenders in this respect, and did a grave disservice to other colleagues who helped the young Ghanaian lawyers as much as they could.

When he ceased to be Attorney General, Bing joined the President's Office as some sort of Special Legal Adviser. So his influence with Nkrumah was not altogether terminated by his loss of office.

As soon as I returned to the AG's office in Accra after my second Geneva visit, I knew that my fortunes had changed with the departure of Bing. Commey Mills-Odoi was now Attorney-General. On his appointment, Johnny Abbensetts became Solicitor General. Somehow, I had even lost the room which I used as my office. I was asked to use the library. Suddenly, I found that I had no work to do. Whenever I went to see the Attorney-General and he was reading a confidential file, he hastily closed or covered it. I thought it a bit odd, as I had been used to confidential files ever since I was an Assistant Crown Counsel. But I soon reconciled myself to my fate. If I was to have no work to do, there was no better place that I could while away my time in than the library. I, therefore, occupied myself with general research work organised by myself. Outside his office, Mills-Odoi maintained an attitude of friendliness and bon homie towards me. I do not recall any legal topic of importance or interest which we discussed during the period when he was Attorney General. He talked to me about horse racing in which he had a very keen interest. Of course, I had followed the sport since I was a student at Achimota. So I was not totally at a loss in such discussions.

Salvation came to me from a surprising source: I found myself being asked from time to time by the Minister, Aaron Ofori Atta, to research particular problems for him. These requests of the Minister came directly to me and not through the Attorney General. There was, for example, a suggestion that the Bar be organised on the same footing as in the USSR, where all lawyers were employed by the State even when they represented individuals; what were the pros and cons of such a move. Fortunately, the office library had a number of texts, both from inside and outside the Soviet Union on legal practitioners and I was able to present a report to the Minister using, amongst other material, critical statements from Soviet lawyers and academics. That was the last I heard of the suggestion. But I had other requests from him for assistance. I began to enjoy myself very much the as legal research assistant to the Minister. Outside office work, I had practically no contact with him.

Soon, there was a suggestion that the legal section of the Ministry be reorganised. Apart from the Solicitor General, a Director of Public Prosecutions, who would be in charge of all criminal prosecutions and responsible to the Attorney General directly, was to be appointed. Johnny Abbensetts continued in office as the Solicitor General. Kwasi Dua Sakyi, whom I had known at Oxford when he was at Ruskin College doing Public Administration while I was reading jurisprudence, became the new Director of Public Prosecutions. The drafting section was to become a division under the Chief Parliamentary Counsel or Legal Draftsman. Charlie Crabbe was appointed a Principal State Attorney to head this Division. Akilano Akiwumi, became a Principal State Attorney but was elevated to the High Court bench on 1 September 1962. I was also appointed a Principal State Attorney with the nebulous jurisdiction of research. I understand that my promotion to Principal State Attorney at this Stage was objected to by the Establishment Secretariat on the ground of my age. I was then about 31. But the Secretariat apparently relented when the Minister made it known to them that if I was not to be promoted the whole set of recommendations for promotion would be withdrawn. I now felt that I had a new unsolicited protector. By now, the Civil Service Act, 1960 (C.A.5), one of the Constitutional Acts which had been enacted at the same time as the Republican Constitution when Geoffrey Bing was in office, had been in force for over a year. Section 15(2) of that Act stated simply and clearly that, “Promotions shall be made according to merit.” Yet it was still a common cause of grievance and complaint that someone who was supposed to be junior had been promoted out of turn.

In my research division, I continued to do odd jobs, mainly researching for the Minister. I had little responsibility for other members of staff. I saw little of the Attorney-General. Before the enactment of the Public Property (Protection) and Corrupt Practices (Prevention) Act, 1962 (Act 121) the Minister asked me to advise him on the adoption of provisions in the Russian Criminal Law on poor management and responsibility for theft of Governmental and Public Property. I opened my advice by saying, “Minister, there is no reason why provisions similar to the Russian Criminal Law provisions on 'Poor Management' and 'Responsibility for Theft of Governmental and Public Property' (attached hereto) should, if thought necessary, not be introduced into our law but, to fit them in, different treatment would be called for.” I had no objection to the introduction of the concept of management of State property in a manner which leads to its dissipation or of protection of State property should not be introduced into our law. There was enough evidence of the necessity of such a law. But I was anxious that we should not start formulating laws which were not in consonance with the traditions which we had so far developed. I went on to discuss the provisions of our existing laws which were akin to though not covering, the whole of the area he was considering and to suggest the manner in which our Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes could be amended to take care of his concerns. He did not choose the method I had advised but went for a completely new Act with a dramatic title. But it remained on the statute book more as a threat than anything else because I do not recall it being used during the Nkrumah regime. Later on, when I was Director of Public Prosecutions, I had the Act reconstructed with the assistance of Kofi Tetteh under the title of ****.~[* fix ]~ The major concern that I had with Minister Ofori Attah's Act was that it established, as the procedure, an enquiry procedure which went into an allegation of corruption. Then upon an adverse finding by the enquiry, the person adversely affected was made liable to punishment. But this, I thought, was not enough protection for the person accused. The enquiry may have come to its conclusion without giving him an opportunity of cross-examining witnesses or of hearing him. It could have made its findings based solely on hearsay evidence. The Act made no fine distinctions in such matters, any finding of a commission or committee of enquiry was sufficient. In the restructured enactment that I had passed, the findings of the enquiry together with the evidence in support became prima facie evidence against the person affected in a criminal trial. The prosecution did not have to call witnesses all over again to make such a prima facie case. The accused at the criminal trial is then called upon to make his defence, which could consist of the submission followed by evidence that he was not heard at the enquiry or not allowed to cross-examine witnesses or not invited to call or make available witnesses to support his case or that the enquiry finding was based on nothing else but hearsay evidence or, indeed, any defence he wished to make. The finding of the criminal trial court would be based on the totality of the evidence, namely, the enquiry report and the material derived from the criminal trial. Questions like the burden of proof in criminal trials remained unaffected. But even this improved statute remained more as a threat than an operative instrument during the reign of Nkrumah. One of the many sins I am supposed to have committed in the Office during Geoffrey Bing's Attorney-Generalship was that, some time in 1961, Bing recruited Ian Evans, my tutor at Jesus College, Oxford, as a legal drafting advisor in succession to Francis Bennion. I had not discussed Ian prior to his recruitment by Bing. I had not been in touch with Ian since I left Oxford. I knew he had left Oxford the year I graduated but I did not know what had happened to him. But then, other people were not to know this. I got to know that Ian was coming to replace Bennion when Bing ran into me on the Office verandah one day and told me that he had succeeded in getting a replacement for Bennion. I knew he had had difficulty in finding a replacement for Bennion as the accommodation granted him by the First Parliamentary Counsel in seconding one of the members of his small staff had come to an end. Naturally, I asked who the new recruit was. He said one Evans who was working in the British Treasury Solicitor's Department. The Treasury Solicitor in Britain is the top Civil Service lawyer who advises Government on all legal matters other than criminal cases which were not dealt with by the Attorney General or Solicitor General and who instructs counsel to appear for Government in cases before the courts. His staff also draft most of the subsidiary legislation made under the Acts which had been drafted by the First Parliamentary Counsel's Office. Although Evans is a common Welsh name, even one of my ancestors bore that name, I had a momentary inspiration and asked him what was the first name of this Evans he had recruited. He tried to recall but soon confessed that he had forgotten. He remembered, however, that this Evans had a string of initials. So I asked him whether those initials were I.M.P? He said yes, how do you know. I told him that I. M. P. Evans was my tutor at Oxford. I was, indeed, delighted that I was to meet Ian again. But I knew he was going to have a difficult time as his position would be questioned on the ground that his recruitment was an additional acknowledgement of the inability of Ghanaians to discharge functions for which they were capable.

Ian came and he ran into this difficulty. He was slighted and sidelined, and when Bing ceased to be Attorney-General, he was ignored altogether. His assignment had nothing to do with me and I knew that, apart from maintaining our personal friendship, I could not help him. He was the first person to congratulate me when I was made the Director of Public Prosecutions. Of the circumstances, I will presently tell. I was his best-man at his wedding in Ghana before he left Ghana at the end of his secondment, which must have been devoid of intellectual stimulation, in November 1963. He wrote a poem which he read at his farewell party, the draft of which he gave to me to keep. It is not outstanding poetry but as it best illustrates his feelings at the end of his two years, portrays his conception of the times through which he lived and imparts some of the flavour of the Attorney-General's Office of the time, I would like to quote it: "Tomorrow I'm leaving Ghana And I'm very sorry to go Because those who come to Ghana Can't possibly hope to know Of the many smiles that await them And the endless succession of friends Who will always wave and greet them Whatever the current trends No more talk of State Attorneys Or promotion to 'Senior State' But orthodox Treasury doctrine My God, I just can't wait No more the sunny office With louvres held ajar The corridor peopled with shadows Some very familiar.

No more the easy friendship With A-Gs and D.P.Ps The minutes addressed by first names They never failed to please. The serious interest taken By messengers carrying files In the contents of their charges - And their quite bewildering smiles! The heated debates in Parliament With the draftsman looking on, Dumbfounded, and uttering quietly, Is this really what I have done? We never raise our voices And seldom admit our mistakes But you just try and draft them, My G you need what it takes.

We're beset by friendly critics (And those who don't love us so much) But the latter we find far easier - They seem to lack the drafting touch The English language is awkward With its grammar, syntax and all But the Irish have shown their mastery Why should you and I always fail? Are you and I bound to fail Yet perhaps we're improving slowly - I shall soon be put to the test By my awe-inspiring superiors And I am sure they know best. I'll write and tell you what happens But Whitakers never fails To give our vital statistics If nothing comes through the mails.

Well, this is a farewell to Ghana From a practising Anglophile Who knows when he lands in London There'll be less sunshine in his smile."

Ian left for England on 30 November 1963. He continued for some time with the Treasury Solicitor but later joined British Steel Corporation as its Legal Adviser and Secretary until his retirement. Politically, the country had been moving decidedly towards the east. There had been charges starting soon after independence that Ghana was moving towards the Soviet block. Ghana's role as a radical African country, finding itself often criticising the role of the west in international affairs and moves to detach itself from common approach adopted by the west were pointed at as evidence of Ghana's leftward lurch. I did not accept at the time that we were necessarily turning eastward. Even the change to Republicanism from the British monarchy as the Head of State was numbered as one of the supporting pieces of evidence. I had always maintained a sceptical attitude in such arguments because, as I saw it, the Gold Coast had been a part of the British colonial empire for such a long time that any move it could make as an independent country was bound to be away from that status and bound to be interpreted by some as a move against the west. However, after Ghana became a Republic and, especially after a grenade was thrown at Nkrumah in 1961(?)~[* 1963? suggested ]~ at Kulungugu in the Upper region on his return by land from a visit to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), the feeling he must have entertained that the west was trying to get rid of him must have intensified and he increased the level of security protection he had from the east.

Events occurring after Kulungugu increased tension in the country. Tawia Adamafio, who was then Minister for Presidential Affairs and the most powerful Minister in Nkrumah's government; Ako Adjei, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the person who had first mentioned Nkrumah's name to colleagues of the United Gold Coast Convention leading to the invitation to Nkrumah to return to the Gold Coast as General Secretary of the UGCC, and; Coffie Crabbe, then the head of the CPP political machinery, were arrested and detained under the Preventive Detention Act as implicated in the plot to kill Nkrumah at Kulungugu. They were in the entourage of the President on his visit to Upper Volta. As Minister for Presidential Affairs, Tawia Adamafio, popularly known as TA, was the Minister responsible for the Civil Service. But I doubt whether many a tear was shed in the Service by his arrest. His rise in the Party hierarchy which had coincided with the demise or relegation of people who had started the CPP with Nkrumah like Komla Agbeli Gbedemah and Kojo Botsio, was watched by many with apprehension, if not fear. Before he achieved his pre-eminent position, the most interesting political speculation was to determine whether Ghedemah or Botsio was going to succeed Nkrumah. Some thought that Botsio was the more trusted of the two; others thought Gbedemah was the more competent. By the time of Kulungugu, all that was history. Botsio had fallen from grace having been accused of building an ostentatious house among other acts of transgression. Gbedemah had been driven into opposition and exile, distributing tracts railing against Nkrumah's iniquities. Tawia Adamafio was now the undisputed heir apparent. His effusive and almost sickly praise of the Preventive Detention Act, as the most effective instrument for the control of saboteurs, was remembered. For some time it had become a question of interest to determine what his future plans were. If one went about cutting down all around the leader, leaving the leader in splendid isolation, the easiest next step is to cut down the leader himself and take his place. So thought one of my colleagues in the Office. Nobody, however, associated him with any treasonable activity at the time.

There were also sporadic explosions of bombs round Accra which resulted in injuries to members of the gatherings into which they were thrown. The Police were under great pressure to find out who the bomb throwers were. J. Owusu Sechere, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department with whom I often worked on criminal prosecutions, played an important part in this.

The Civil Service came under pressure to show its support for Nkrumah and the CPP openly. All senior officers were invited to the Winneba Ideological College to hear the President and Party officials address them. We had been quickly taught and, as Nkrumah came in, we started singing: “If you follow him (repeated once again); Osagyefo; He will make you fishers of men (repeated twice); He will make you fishers of men; If you follow him.”

After the speeches, we had lunch and parted company. This was followed by meetings in the Ministries to which officers of the rank of Principal Secretary and its equivalent, which included the Solicitor General, Director of Public Prosecutions and all Principal State Attorneys were summoned for discussions. We were summoned to one of these meetings in the early afternoon of 18(?)~[* date? ]~ July 1962. I walked across from our Office to the meeting with Dua Sakyi, the DPP, and sat by him. The meeting was delayed for some time because, as we learnt later, we were waiting for I. K. Impraim, the Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet. When he eventually arrived, he made straight for Dua Sakyi and myself, handed him a letter and another to me. It was totally unexpected. I opened mine gingerly to see what it was all about. It merely said that I had been promoted DPP as from the following day and added congratulations. I turned round to Dua Sakyi and asked him what his letter had said. There was a look of puzzlement on his face. He showed it to me. It was an exact copy of my letter except that instead of promotion as DPP, it said he had been appointed Principal State Attorney. Our positions had been switched. I was terribly embarrassed. Dua Sakyi was my friend. Since our Oxford days, we had regarded him as our elder. He was a mature student when he went up. I asked him what was the meaning of this and he said he did not know. But he looked very shaken. The ensuing meaning did not have any relevance to either of us. I left the meeting in a daze and as I approached the AG's Office, I was met by Ian Evans and he asked anxiously what was wrong as I looked disturbed. I confessed that I had just received a letter saying that I was promoted DPP as from the following day. He said, why, that is a cause for congratulations. For the first time, I saw that there was another side to the occurrence.

Dua Sakyi must have gone through very agonising times. Aaron Ofori Attah was our Minister. They were quite close as they both came from Akim Abuakwa and it was through Aaron that he had joined the Office late in life in his senior position. But Dua Sakyi had no advance warning of the catastrophe and Aaron was not able to help him afterwards to reduce his agony by having him shifted somewhere else after the change. He eventually resigned from the service shortly after. I lost somebody~[* someone ]~ I considered a friend because he never really talked to me again. I need hardly say that I could not have had anything to do with his fall. I did not follow his career as DPP closely, so I did not know how he was discharging his duties. I was, on the other hand, enjoying myself in my division of research carrying on all sorts of odd assignments. He was the friend of the Minister whom I never visited socially. The switch in offices had come from the President's Office and there was no doubt that it was made at the instance of the President himself. But apart from public functions to which I was invited, I never met the President. I had no line to him. What could have happened? One explanation I later got was that the change was made upon a complaint levelled by Chief Justice Korsah. He was then close to Nkrumah. As the explanation went, he and his Supreme Court had been dissatisfied with Dua Sakyi for some time. On the morning of the eventful day, some conduct of Dua Sakyi had angered the Court so much that the Chief Justice got in touch with the President and laid his complaint. He thought Dua Sakyi ought to be removed. Thereafter, the President asked around his confidants about who could discharge the functions of DPP properly. My information was that I was suggested by Kwaw-Swanzy, then in private practice and quite close to Nkrumah. He was later to become my Attorney-General. Impraim was asked to write the letters, which he did while the meeting was waiting for him.

I received congratulations from many. But none of them was as touching as the congratulations which Justice Adumua-Bossman sent. It was most pleasing because I had always admired him as one of our most learned judges this century. He was also a friend of my father's and the father of my friends, Willie and John at Achimota. His letter dated the 11th of August 1962 was as follows:

My dear Amissah,

As the most intimate friend (Late Ofei Awere excepted) of your Dear Old Dad, it has given me the utmost gratification to watch the steady and assuring progress you have been making in your work; and I was infinitely happy when I read of your promotion to this highly responsible office of D.P.P.

I send along with this Note a bottle of champagne to congratulate you most heartily and to wish you further promotions in the not too distant future.

Sincerely yours,

A most affectionate Pal of your Dad,

(sgned) K. Adumua Bossman (J.S.C)"

Incidentally the Ofei Awere whom he mentioned was Lawyer Awere who was my godfather. He later became the Paramount Chief of Akwapem State under the Stool name of Nana Kwadade II(?).~[* name check? ]~ I remember that the last time I saw him was when we, in the primary class 4 and 5 at Achimota primary school based at Aburi, walked from Aburi to Dodowa to observe the proceedings of the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs. I think he was presiding over the Council on that day. I was then about 12 years old and was quite proud to point him out as my godfather. He explained the proceedings of the Council to us after they closed. Then Johnny Quashie-Idun and I had a little time with him before our walk back to Aburi. Unfortunately, he died early and I did not have further opportunity of developing a relationship with him. In later years, his son, Daniel Awere, was a school friend and fellow horse racing enthusiast at Achimota.

My reply to Justice Adumua-Bossman, dated 20th August 1962 (I am ashamed looking at the letter some 34 years later that I had committed the unpardonable sin of describing a man I had known all my life, and whose sons were friends of mine at Achimota as “Aduama-Bossman”. A secretarial error, but nonetheless unpardonable), was:

"My dear Mr. Justice Aduama-Bossman,

It has taken me so long to write to thank you because words capable of describing my feeling adequately have eluded me. I write now not because I have suddenly found words but for the fear that my continued silence might be construed as ungratefulness.

I was extremely moved by the sentiments expressed in your note. Thank you very much for it and the gift which accompanied it. I hope that the interest you have shown, and continue to show, in me will not be misplaced. I shall endeavour to discharge my new duties to the best of my ability always praying that my efforts would meet with your approval.

With all best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

(A.N.E. Amissah)"

Not very long after I had been appointed DPP, Mills Odoi was elevated back to the Supreme Court bench and Kwaw Swanzy succeeded him as Attorney General. I had, of course, known Kwaw Swanzy when he was a senior student at Achimota. He was in what we called “Inter”, meaning that he had finished his School Certificate examinations and was doing the London Intermediate degree examination course. That was the course which was later replaced by the Sixth Form. But I got to know him even better when I spent the three months of the summer of 1951 at the flat of my cousin, Fifi Quartey, in 56 Eltisley Avenue, Cambridge, before I went up to Oxford. Fifi's flat was part of a building which had been divided into three flats: one was occupied by Chris Dadey, who later became an agricultural officer, rose to the position of Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and then joined the FAO in Rome. He was a director on the board of UAC (Ghana) Limited in the latter 1970s while I was a director. I believe we were appointed to the board on the same day. The other flat belonged to Kwesi Kurankyi Taylor whom Kwaw Swanzy, with good reason, greatly admired. Kwaw, having finished his degree in history at Manchester University, where Kurankyi Taylor, won most of his academic honours, was being pestered by the Colonial Office to return home. He had other plans, as he wanted to do a post-graduate degree in Cambridge. I enjoyed watching him play his cat and mouse game with the Colonial Office. He had his way eventually and stayed on. Later on, I saw a bit of him while I was stationed in Kumasi and he was more or less carrying Kurankyi Taylor's practice as Kurankyi was terminally ill. I was very happy to see him appointed as Attorney General.

Even before I became DPP, I had started on a career which was to play a major part of my life later on. I became a part-time law lecturer, in both the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana and the Law School. The Law Faculty in the University of Ghana was established at a late stage, as law was considered by the colonial administration as an unnecessary and provocative profession. Soon thereafter, at the instigation of Geoffrey Bing, the Law School behind the Supreme Court building was established. I remember the opening of the Law School by Nkrumah. I have no doubt that his speech that day was written by Bing. He sat by me and as Nkrumah read that speech, I could see in him the anxiety of the composer who is hearing his work played for the first time. There was that look of relief when the difficult passages were executed effectively by the player. It was in that speech that Nkrumah called for the abolition of the wig and gown, describing the wig as that “ridiculous headgear” which had been foisted on us by our colonial masters. I understand that after that speech there was a meeting of the General Legal Council to consider the matter. Lawyers are very conservative and they would normally not like to shed apparel which distinguished them from the ordinary man in the street. But in this instance some were incensed that the suggestion for abolition of the cherished apparel did not come from any of them but from an outsider. They refused to accede to Nkrumah's appeal. The story goes that as the meeting went on, there were agents of the famous wig and gown makers Ede and Ravenscroft of London pacing up and down the corridor, prepared, if Nkrumah's objection was to a blind copying of the English off-white wig and a black gown, to offer us a grey wig and gown as substitutes. That story may have been apocryphal. But anyway, when the Law School was established, Bing brought John Lang, who had up till that time been the Deputy Solicitor of ICI in England to hold the Chair of Professor at the Law Faculty in the University and Head of the Law School. Lang had been relieved of his post because his wife was supposed to be a communist, and the British Government was threatening to withdraw valuable contracts from the conglomerate if Lang continued in his position. ~[* repetition, check on ]~ Lang was subsequently succeeded by Professor Harvey, the American. Harvey had chosen another American, Robert Seidman, to lecture in Criminal Law. But Bob Seidman was not in Ghana at the time, and I was asked to lecture in the meantime in Criminal Law at the University and in Criminal Procedure at the Law School. I started this, but when Bob Seidman came he took over the Criminal Law lectures and I continued with the Criminal Procedure. It was an experience which was to prove most rewarding. I enjoyed teaching. But throughout my teaching life, I could never relax over it. Each time, I had to read over my notes for the lecture before appearing at the lecture. It did not matter that I had been doing the same thing for years, and the procedure was the same; I could never feel confident about how the lecture was going to go otherwise.