9. Judge in Ghana

From the spacious offices in the Attorney General's Office, I moved into tiny chambers opposite the Chief Justice at the top of the Supreme Court building. I became the most junior of the judges of the Court of Appeal. I had, for example, as Director of Public Prosecutions and Acting Attorney General been for several years a member of the General Legal Council, the body which regulated the affairs of the legal profession. I lost that position on becoming the junior judge of the Court of Appeal. There were many who thought that my position as a judge was unmerited. There must have also been many who thought that I would fall flat on my face once I was confronted with a civil case. The Attorney General's Office is often mistaken, by lawyers and some senior lawyers at that, as a home of prosecutors. My position was not improved by the fact that I had been Director of Public Prosecutions. I had always believed that the function of an appellate judge was different from that of a trial judge and, indeed, I had thought that the system of invariable promotion of judges right to the appellate court stage from earlier service as magistrates was a mistake. But despite the fact that the Public Services Act enacted early in the Republic expressly stated that promotion shall be on merit, Ghana is a country which strongly believes in age and seniority that not much attention was paid by ordinary citizens to this warning. I was in a Court with at least two people whose legal knowledge I admired tremendously. In Akufo Addo, I thought we had a worthy Chief Justice, and in Apaloo, I thought we had a brilliant legal mind.

Perhaps to forestall criticism and to familiarise me with the work of the High Court, Chief Justice Akufo Addo decided to send me down to the High Court to deal with certain matters. I enjoyed seeing counsel, some recognised as senior, coming before me with bogus applications and hoping that in my innocence, I would grant them. Some spoke at length. I always got the gist of what they were about in the first few minutes. While they continued haranguing me, I wrote my ruling. As soon as they finished speaking, I gave my ruling. They must have been shocked. They soon stopped putting bogus applications before me. Then Akufo Addo asked me to deal with the case of Chief Adrakpanya against Chief Dzisam. This was a case of very long standing. Akufo Addo selected me to do it because practically every judge of consequence had had something to do with it, either as judge or counsel. The Chief Justice's instruction was that I should sit on the case from day to day until it was finished. When I had the case called for the first time, I realised immediately why judges had fought shy of it over the years. The case was a dispute over land ownership. But it was not a dispute over a plot or even a tract of land, it involved several villages. When I asked the plaintiff, Chief Adrakpanya, how many witnesses he had to call, he said about eighty. Chief Dzisam, the defendant, did not have as many witnesses; he wanted to call only forty. I understood immediately why judges had avoided starting to hear it. I told them I had all the time in the world for the case and asked Chief Adrakpanya to open and start calling his witnesses. He did not manage as many as the eighty witnesses which he had threatened. Nor did Chief Dzisam call as many as the forty which he at first thought. It took me several weeks but at last I managed to hear all the evidence the parties preferred. Without counting heads, the evidence seemed strongly to favour the plaintiff and I gave a judgment in his favour. I understand that there was an appeal which was dismissed. Unfortunately, as the case depended solely on my assessment of the facts, it found no place in the Law Reports.

I enjoyed hearing the case because it involved some Ewe history, especially about the people of southern Eweland. The folklore of how the Ewes came into existence and incidental information about people's ordinary names and “drinking names”, the latter of which no one except drinking friends knew about. The comment of my friend, Justice Apaloo, when the case was over was that, if the plaintiff had known at the time that he brought his action that the judge to hear it had not even been born, he would have thought twice about bringing the action.

I also sat in the High Court on the cases involving the Italians Carlo de Cocci and Mario Chiavelli. They had gone into business together but, later on, with one trying to outsmart the other, they fell apart and started using the courts to secure advantages over each other. I gave a series of judgments or rulings in these matters. Some twenty years later, after I had retired from the Ghana bench and joined the Botswana Court of Appeal, the President of the Botswana Court of Appeal, the great South African advocate, Israel (Isie)~[* Issie?, please check, Uncle Roger notes ]~ Maisels, mentioned casually to me that he was advising in a case involving an Italian millionaire, Chiavelli, whom he thought was a crook and that he understood that the man had passed through Ghana before. He had apparently made his money helping break the oil sanctions against South Africa, where he now had a huge and much talked about mansion. Isie needed material which could discredit him. I told Isie that the man came before me in Ghana at a time when he was not such a wealthy man. Of course, my judgments were just what he needed, and I was able to send him photocopies. I later heard that the case had been settled to the satisfaction of Isie's client. Isie paid me a small fee for my help.

The first time I sat with my brothers of the Court of Appeal, was on a case to decide between two competing earlier decisions of the highest Courts of the land. It was the case of ***.~[* provide date ]~ The Court was constituted by five judges, including the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice wrote a judgment which was concurred in by the majority of the Court. Apaloo and I wrote separate short judgments expressing our disquiet at the reasoning but we, eventually, caved in and concurred. I have often been told that from the tenor of my contribution, I should have had the courage of my convictions and dissented. That may be right. But the decision set the tone of the Court. It was not going to be a Court in which judges just concurred; different views would be expressed. That was exciting.

A case which came up on appeal but with which I was not involved in the Court was the Henry K. Djaba and James Quartey case. It will be recalled that I had prosecuted in that case before Justice Akainyah who had convicted the accused. The original Court which heard the appeal was made up of Justices Azu Crabbe, Apaloo and Lassey. The case took an unusual course because, after the hearing, a conference of the judges was held in which it was clear the Justice Azu Crabbe favoured allowing the appeal and Justice Apaloo favoured dismissing it. Asked his opinion, Justice Lassey said he agreed with Apaloo that the appeal be dismissed. Azu Crabbe, whether by calculation or accident, then invited Lassey to write the judgment of the majority for their consideration. I am not sure that he had this privilege as the senior judge presiding in a case where he was in a minority. But in the choice of Lassey seemed to have been by some divine providence because Lassey was unable to write the judgment for months. The silence of the Court became a scandal. Peter Adjetey, one of the Counsel for Djaba, wrote an article in the University publication, Legon Observer, on justice delayed amounting to justice denied. Peter was threatened with contempt proceedings. Chief Justice Akufo Addo has asked Justice Azu Crabbe why judgment could not be given. Was the panel unable to arrive at a decision? Azu Crabbe said that the Court had come to a decision: it was split and he had asked Justice Lassey to write the majority judgment which they were all waiting for. Akufo Addo called George Lassey and asked what was causing the delay. George's answer was that he had agreed with Apaloo but, since then, whenever he started to express his view of the matter, he began to have doubts. Akufo Addo thereupon decided to empanel a Court of five judges, with the three original judges forming the core and two more judges being invited to join them to rehear the case. Justices Ollennu and Edusei were invited to join the others. Upon the rehearing, both of the new judges sided with Azu Crabbe and he formed the majority. Apaloo wrote a powerful dissenting judgement, which could have been the majority decision of the original Court. But it was too late. Djaba and Quartey had their convictions set aside. Dan Annan had done a lot of work for Government, recovering from Germany, part of the moneys paid by the Emmerich brothers to Djaba from Germany for Government. Later on, I heard that Djaba was threatening to sue both Dan and me. But he was obviously advised against it because I heard no more.

Soon, appeals from convictions under the Corrupt (Practices) Prevention Act, the famous or infamous Act 230, depending on one's point of view, started to come to the Court of Appeal. They arose out of convictions arising from the enquiry and report of Justice Ollennu's Commission into Irregularities and Malpractices in the grant of Import Licences. The report came out in 1968. I think I was involved in the hearing of at least two of them. One was the case of Mrs. Akainyah and the other was a case involving Minister Jantuah. In both, the appeals were dismissed. The Court of Appeal for Mrs. Akainyah case was composed of Apaloo, Lassey and myself. The old head of Chambers in London in which I had served as a pupil in 1955-56, now Sir Dingle Foot Q.C., as he had in the interim been a Solicitor General of a Labour Government in England, represented Mrs. Akainyah before us. Joe Reindorf was with him. Dingle practically addressed all his submissions to me, the most junior on the Bench. He had started coming to Ghana as far back as the Watson Commission days after the Osu riots in 1948. He then represented the Big Six of the United Gold Coast Convention. He set up a fashion of advocacy at the Commission which made even ordinary people think of the style with which a lawyer should present his case. He, however, lost his practice in the Gold Coast when Nkrumah broke away from the UGCC and formed the Convention People's Party (CPP) and took on Geoffrey Bing as his Constitutional Adviser. It was because the Gold Coast Government wanted him to take me on as a pupil in 1955, which as a silk he could not under the rules do at the time, that I was taken in by his Chambers as Tom Kellock's first pupil. I had then followed Dingle, when he was appearing with Tom as his junior, especially in the Privy Council, to hear him do cases. He was, in my view, a great advocate on appeals before the Privy Council. But his advocacy did not help him this time. The appeal of Mrs. Akainyah, which he argued entirely on the constitutional ground that the Act violated the Constitution of 1960 and was, therefore, unconstitutional when passed. According to his submission, the judicial power of the State was by the Constitution conferred on the courts; no body other than a court could legally exercise the judicial power of the State. By Act 230, judicial power of the State, vested in the Courts, was improperly broken up into the Commission of Enquiry stage, which had no power to exercise any part of the judicial and a truncated court process. This was, according to the argument, impermissible under the Constitution. The appeal was dismissed. Justice Apaloo wrote a learned opinion for the Court. Years later, when I met him at dinner at the home of Tom Kellock, my pupil-master, I asked him when he last visited Ghana. With a wry smile, he said, “when you turned me down”.

I was also on the Court of Appeal panel which dealt with the case against F.A. Jantuah, a Minister of Agriculture in the Nkrumah regime. That we also dismissed. The case of corruption brought against Dr. Bossman under the same process, however, went in the appellant's favour.

I became a more regular member of the Court of Appeal panels. A large number of the civil cases we did were land cases, in which I had little interest. Apart from that, the other heavy component of the appellate work was criminal. That was easier for me to cope with but presented very little excitement. Cases of contract, or some abstruse legal point commercial law which I would have enjoyed, were rare. I remember once sitting with Fred Apaloo presiding over the panel on a land case. Within the first few minutes, I had got the hang of the appellant's argument and I started writing something unconnected with the case. Fred suddenly asked me to pay more attention to the case. He knew what had happened and he whispered to me that, to the parties before us, this may be the most important moment of their lives. I felt sufficiently chastised and payed paid more attention to the rambling and boring arguments from then on.

Naturally, before the NLC handed over to a civilian government in 1969, the courts did not have constitutional cases to deal with. An interesting case which came before us, however, was the representative action taken by three leading members of the legal profession against the Chief Justice. In order to ensure that lawyers paid for and obtained their annual practising certificates before practising, the General Legal Council, which had responsibility for the issue of annual solicitor's licences prescribed, decided, and the Chief Justice approved, that no lawyer was to be granted audience in any court unless he produced his solicitor's licence in court. The Chief Justice's circular issued pursuant to this decision reminded lawyers that the prohibition extended to all forms of a lawyer's normal work and not only to appearances in court. The lawyers who brought the action, no doubt with the support of a large section of the profession, were J.B. Quashie-Idun, B.J. da Rocha and Joe Reindorf against the Chief Justice, the Judicial Secretary, Ebenezer Aidoo and the General Legal Council to test the validity of the Chief Justice's instruction. The plaintiffs obtained an interim injunction against the defendants from Justice Anterkyi, a judge with a reputation for cantankerousness. In the course of his ruling, he made some derogatory remarks about the Chief Justice. He was, in the opinion of Anterkyi J., a very bad man. The Chief Justice and the other defendants then appealed to the Court of Appeal. The preliminary question was whether Akufo Addo as Chief Justice could constitute the panel to hear the appeal. Chief Justice Akufo Addo asked me to preside over the case. He had very little choice of appellate court judges because, I believe, apart from George Lassey and myself, all the other Justices of Appeal were members of the General Legal Council. The Court constituted for the appeal, therefore, had only me as a Justice of Appeal; the other judges on the panel were, Justices Kingsley-Nyinah, Archer, Baidoo and Annan, all of whom were then judges of the High Court. Apart from Justice Baidoo, who unfortunately died early, the others later became judges of the Court of Appeal and had distinguished careers. Justice Kingsley-Nyinah also served later as Electoral Commissioner; Justice Archer who was a good lawyer but also a bit deaf, eventually rose, in spite of his handicap, to become Chief Justice, and; Justice Annan, whom I had worked closely with in Kumasi, from which office he retired some time after I had taken the same course. He was a naturally gifted lawyer but his judgments, even in cases where he had the answer on the bench, were slow in appearing. He eventually became the acceptable face of Rawlings's regime and, from there, became Speaker of Parliament. It was quite proper for a judge of the High Court to be invited to sit in the Court of Appeal. But objection was taken to the fact that, in this case, the majority of the judges were from the High Court. I wrote a judgment upholding the right of the Chief Justice to constitute the Court on the ground of necessity. No one else had the power while he was available and able to act for him. The judgment also dismissed the objection to the High Court judges sitting on the case, there being no limitation on the number of High Court judges who could be invited to sit on a case in the Court of Appeal. Anterkyi's judgment itself was easy to dispose of because, apart from the abuse that he heaped on the Chief Justice, there was nothing to justify it. I ended my judgment with a homily, perhaps a bit ostentatious, in the following words:

---- [see Akufo Addo and Others v. Quashie-Idun and Others [1968] G.L.R.667 ~[* missing insert ]~

When I later met Anterkyi, he went out of his way to assure me that he had no quarrel with me. He told me he had known my father, whom he liked, and had, unbeknown to me, even once worked with him. But Akufo Addo, he insisted, was a very bad man. I do not know what the Chief Justice did to him to deserve such detestation.

The fact that the Chief Justice had to constitute an overwhelming proportion of the panel of the Court of Appeal from the High Court demonstrated the limitations of the five of us then serving as the Court. The Constituent Assembly which was fashioning the new constitution took notice of it. This deficiency was rectified soon after the hand-over to civilian rule by the appointment of five more judges of the Court of Appeal on 1 October 1969. [J.B. Siriboe, a judge before the purge of October 1966, who had succeeded Adumua-Bossman as Chairman of the Chieftaincy Secretariat, when A-B died in 1967, Annie Jiagge, E.N.P. Sowah, P.E.N.K. Archer and P.D. Anin, from private practice - p.269 of Contribution of the Courts]

I soon began to tire of judging cases. The challenge I had enjoyed in the Attorney General's Office was to devise ways by which a desired end could be legally achieved. Beside that, the exercise of listening to two parties in order to decide which side was right paled into an old man's job. Fred Apaloo always said that I became a judge too early. The first time he mentioned this I was a bit irritated by it but I soon had to accept that he was right. I was, however, taken away from purely judicial work by appointment to sit on Commissions of Enquiry. The first one I had was as a Sole Commissioner to enquire into allegations of corruption against Commissioner Sylvan Amegashie. Apparently, accusations had been made against him by Afrifa in Cabinet that he was receiving and giving favours to one Templesman, an important player in the World diamond market. I sat in camera at the State House. I found that there was no evidence to support the charge and exonerated Amegashie.

The other was more difficult. It involved an allegation of subversion against Air Vice Marshall Michael Otu and his ADC, Lieutenant Kwapong. They were charged with conduct which was intended to restore Kwame Nkrumah. This time, I was Chairman of the Commission. My colleagues being, Charlie Coussey, who was a judge of the High Court and Charles Kwesi Zwennes, a Legal Practitioner. In the course of the proceedings, evidence was led of suspicious activities of certain Russian trawlers which were supposed to be in support of the objective. By this time, I must have read quite a lot about State intelligence activities and I probably saw more in the various threads that Counsel for the Commission, Kobina Taylor, was trying to weave than my colleagues did. I wanted to hear more. Above all, I wanted to hear the evidence of the persons against whom the allegations had been made. Each of them refused to give evidence. My colleagues had some sympathy with Otu's and Kwapong's position. I took the view that they could not refuse generally to give evidence in answer to our summons but that they could object to answering specific questions if they tended to incriminate them. Upon their refusal to give evidence, I managed to persuade my colleagues to commit them to the High Court for contempt as we did not have the power ourselves to commit them. The case came before Justice Archer who found that Otu and Kwapong had committed no contempt. Thereafter, the proceedings more or less fizzled out and we were asked by the National Liberation Council to write a report of the proceedings up till then. My colleagues wrote one report giving Otu and Kwapong a clean bill of health, from which I differed. But there was no more to be done with that enquiry and it was terminated.

For me, the most poignant aspect of this enquiry was when my brother, Jack, told me that he was going to marry Lydia, the daughter of Mike Otu's sister. I found it difficult to appear the impartial inquirer which I wanted to be. But there was nothing else that I could do. The marriage arrangements went ahead while I was conducting the enquiry. Eventually, everything turned out as well as one could expect. Lydia has become a most valued sister-in-law but we have never discussed the enquiry.

I also became the first Chairman of the Ghana Law Reform Commission in 1968. It was an experience I really enjoyed. We had as other members, Justice Archer; Justice (before that Professor) Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill, a lawyer, law teacher and later a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ghana; David Effah, a legal practitioner whom I had known since I was in Kumasi and with whom I had travelled to Australia in 1965; Kofi Date-Bah, a law lecturer at the University of Ghana; Kofi Tetteh, a former legal draughtsman of the Attorney General's Office and now Editor of the Ghana Law Reports; and Rebecca Senayah-Sosu (nee Elimah) one of the most brilliant women lawyers I have had the privilege of teaching. It was a serious group and a very good one. Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill, who had written a thesis on land law which had inspired others to follow, was a prickly character; of immense learning, he turned the smallest discussion of a legal point into a doctrinal debate. Rebecca Elimah was the perfect foil in these debates. She was sharp, irreverent and devastating and capable of puncturing any inflated argument with her rapier wit. For research assistance, we had Jeffrey Newman, a recently qualified American lawyer, who had come to Ghana on one of the many American programmes for legal research and teaching. He was based at the University but devoted a substantial part of his time with the Commission. Our Secretary was Ofori-Boateng, who later was elevated to the bench. Together with my colleagues on the Commission, I devised our own programme. When the proceedings of the Commission were opened, the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, M.A.B. Sarpong, had come with the usual anodyne welcoming speech and was surprised but pleased to find that I had a well-planned agenda and method of operation which I proceeded to disclose in my speech. There were lacunae in the law or areas where the English law which governed our affairs in Ghana were too old or difficult to access. Among these were possible statutes on wills, matrimonial causes, mortgages and conveyancing. There were areas where we thought we should have our own law anyway. Some of these needed in-depth research, like the law of evidence, land reform and succession. Those which we could deal with without much trouble we started with right away. When they started coming out as decrees or Acts, they kept us in the public eye as a serious law reform body. Thus, we had a constant stream of statutes like the Wills Act, Matrimonial Causes Decree, Mortgages Decree and Conveyancing Decree being enacted on a more or less regular basis, once we had an Attorney General who was interested in our work. The other problem areas which needed substantial research, we page to the persons whom we thought could help with the research to do. Thus, Jeffrey Newman took on the research and preparation of the Evidence Decree and we gave the land reform problem to Gordon Woodman, an expert on land law in the University Law Faculty, to research and report on. We took the view that in order to concentrate our minds and avoid rambling discussions we should as much as possible try to discuss some draft of a proposed statute. When the report of Gordon Woodman was presented necessarily without a draft statute, apart of the inherent difficulty of the problem itself, we found it also difficult to discuss the report itself. It was, therefore, good that Jeffrey Newman had some drafting skills. When he left, his place was taken over by another American, Dickey, who continued producing drafts for our discussions. It was also good to present the Attorney General's Office with a draft, because it liberated its draftsmen from the construction of a basic draft statute and therefore expedited the preparation of legislation.

Implementation of our recommendations depended very much on the support of the incumbent Attorney General. As long as Nicholas Yaw B. Adade, later Supreme Court Judge, was Attorney General, we found that our reports were shelved. My relations with Adade were not such as to make me want to plead with or chivvy him to take action, which he was disinclined from doing, to ensure that the recommendations became law. But when Victor Owusu became Attorney General, our fortunes took a different turn and our recommendations were adopted. One other observation I must make is that it was much easier to have our reform recommendations translated into law by a military regime that by Parliament under a constitutional government. The latter always had more interesting legislation to enact than the pure lawyers' law which we were interested in, that our type of reform legislation tended to find itself on the back-burner.

But by far the most interesting experience connected with any of our recommendations was easily that which the Evidence Decree went through. It was a very good piece of work which Jeffrey Newman did on that subject. It had such interesting reforms as the general admission of hearsay evidence, with the weight to attach to it being left for the Court to decide. We sent the draft for review by Professor (later Sir) Rupert Cross, who was then the leading authority on the law of Evidence in England. He sent us his comments and a general glowing report saying that he had decided to use some of the material for his lectures at Oxford. Practising lawyers in Ghana, however, were opposed to its enactment, primarily, I believe, because it would necessitate them learning something new which they would rather not. The most astonishing reaction, however, came from the Military Government of the time. It was by now Acheampong's regime, and Earnest Arku, the Policeman, had become the Commissioner for the Interior. Of the over two hundred sections of the proposed statute, there was one sub-section which deeply offended him. This was a proposal that confession statements made to Policemen on enquiry into a case should be inadmissible in evidence unless confirmed before a judicial officer, like a magistrate. This is a provision which operates in India, and since my association with the Botswana Courts, I have found that it operates happily in Botswana and other jurisdictions. The object of our adopting the provision was to put an end to the perpetual argument before Court that a confession statement had been obtained from the accused by the Police under duress or other form of improper inducement. To Arku, this would bring an end to the proper investigation of cases. I understand to get his way in Cabinet, he went as far as to portray me as a subversive for proposing that law. As a result the enactment of the statute was postponed. Other jurisdictions, like Sudan, I understand, adopted the legislation without the home-country where it was developed enacting it. Eventually, after many years, the statute was enacted with the offensive provision excised.

One appointment which I got, much to the puzzlement of Chief Justice Akufo Addo, was as representative of the United Nations (ECOSOC) Committee on Tax Treaties between Developed and Developing Countries. A letter was directed to him asking him to release me for this appointment. I did not know anything about the letter before hand. I shared Akufo Addo's bewilderment as to why I had been nominated because I did not know anything about tax treaties as such. I later on deduced that the recommendation for the appointment had come from my friend, J. H. Mensah, who was then working for the Economic Commission of Africa of the UN. Later on, he did confirm that it was he who had put forward my name when the officers constituting the Group asked him for names. He had no doubt that I would be able to mug up the subject, whatever it was, if I was not previously acquainted with it. Not surprisingly, I had asked Akufo Addo to approve the release on the same ground that I would have to study the subject anyway. I took it as a brief on a subject I did not know about which had been placed before me and which I had to master. In any case, as I told Akufo Addo, it would not involve my being away for any length of time. With some obvious reluctance, he agreed. I duly appeared at the first meeting of the Group in Geneva.

I met a completely different set of inhabitants of this world in this tax treaty Group: people who had devoted their lives mainly to the intricacies of direct taxation. It was a small Group of about fifteen or so experts, selected according to the tax systems from which they came. Most of them were heads of their direct taxation administrations. From the developed countries, the United States was on the first occasion represented by Professor Stanley Surrey, who was then the outgoing Assistant Secretary of their Treasury, and Mr. Nathan Gordon, one of the most senior Treasury Officials; the United Kingdom was represented by Mr. Johnston, the head of direct taxation who shared his country's tax administration with his wife who was at the time the head of the indirect taxation; France was represented by Monsieur Kerlan, the head of direct taxation; Germany, by Debatin; Switzerland by Dr. Locher, shortly thereafter to be replaced by Mr. Widmer; and Japan by Mr. ***.~[* name missing ]~ From the developing countries, India was represented first by Mr. Sundera Rajan but was shortly thereafter replaced by Mr. Shah as the latter replaced him as the head of direct taxation; Brazil by Mr. Donerllis, the head of direct taxation, who for a brief period was to become Minister of Finance; Israel by Mr. Simcha Gafney, who had been once the head of the direct taxation department but was retired at the time and was the head of one of the Israeli commercial banks, which resulted in him being one of the longest lasting members of the Group; Philippines by Mr. Linna, who always brought special Filipino cigars for distribution among hi colleagues at every session; Turkey by Mr. Kafaoglu; Argentina by Madam Casanegra, who shortly afterwards got a permanent job with one of the international organisations; Sudan by Mr. Merghani, a former Minister of Finance; and I represented Ghana. The observers from the IMF, were at first Professor Leif Muten, the youngest Professor of Law which Sweden had produced, and Mr. Olav Snellingen, who became deputy General Counsel of the IMF and its sole representative at the meetings. Some of the personnel changed with changes in their home departments; additions were made, like Mr. Sittampalam of Sri Lanka, who joined us as a member of the developing countries group. Pakistan also became a member. Nigeria was also given observer status which was usually taken by the head of Income Tax. Lesotho also sent an observer at a later stage. When Stanley Surrey ceased to be Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Treasury, he was made the rapporteur and stayed in that capacity until I lost touch with the Committee after it had been reorganised. Nathan Gordon continued to represent the US until he died several years later. Merghani was elected Chairman and Karol Krcmery of Czechoslovakia was the most senior UN official looking after the Committee.

We met at first on an annual basis for about two weeks each time. When at a later stage, the UN finances became strained, we were made to meet once every two years. I was on the Committee for some ten years. It is amazing how those, deeply steeped in a subject, manage to make it alive for others. We at first discussed the problem areas in double taxation between the developed countries which based their system of taxation on the residence of the taxpayer, on the one hand, and the developing countries which based their system on the source of the income, on the other. The whole exercise turned into whether and how the taxes arising on income could be shared by the respective interested governments so as to avoid a double taxation on the income. Later on, we actually developed a model tax treaty with principles which could be acceptable to parties from developed and developing countries negotiating an agreement. I tackled this subject, which had otherwise appeared to me so dry, with interest immediately. I contributed a paper on direct taxation in Ghana. I made a few relevant comments during the discussions. After the first two meetings, I arrived on the morning of the third meeting to find several of my colleagues asking where I had been. They knew I had arrived in Geneva but did not know which hotel I was staying in as I thought the Intercontinental where most of them stayed, appeared a bit too expensive for me. My usual practice was to take a room in one of the cheaper hotels in town, like the Hotel Derby or Longchamps Drake, where I had cooking facilities, and then go out to buy my supplies for my own meals. I was happy to find on one of my outings later that the American delegate, Nathan Gordon, did the same. The only difference between us was that with food and other shortages in Ghana during these years, I tended to overbuy while he bought what he really needed. The Group members who had been looking for me on the earlier occasion, who incidentally were led by Nathan Gordon, said they had been looking for me to find out whether I would like to be Chairman of the Group, as they wanted to change Merghani. I lost the opportunity that time. But the following year I was selected as the Chairman. Stanley Surrey, the great exponent of direct taxation, whom his old students around the conference table like Kerlan of France, Debatin of Germany, Casanegra of Argentina and Dornellis of Brazil, enjoyed crossing swords with, once paid me the highest compliment. After listening to a long-winded debate patiently for some time, he turned to me on the stage and said if this matter were left to the two of us, we would finish it in no time at all.

I remained the Chairman of the Group until it was reorganised in about 1979. By then, we had developed a model tax treaty with commentary which was published under the auspices of the UN, which could be used as a guide in treaty negotiations between parties from developed and developing nations. As Chairman, I had seen my task to be to ensure that the discussions were conducted in an orderly manner, were kept moving and to sum up the major differences in opinion or to distil such consensus as could be seen from the plethora of positions put forward, where such consensus can be divined and would help to move discussions further. With the original mandate of the Group completed, there was the need to turn to other taxation issues between developed and developing nations. I had word that the UN would now like to have Nigeria as a member and, if Nigeria came in, there would be no room for Ghana. I was therefore dropped. A few years later, I was approached again through Olav Snellingen, the IMF representative, who told me that the Group would like to see me back because the experiment with Nigeria had not been a success. To pave the way for my return, I was asked to write a paper on double taxation for the Group which I did and which was circulated. When Olav told me that all was set for my return, I told him that I could not because, by that time, I had become a member of the Botswana Court of Appeal which met in December each year, and that would have conflicted with the December meetings of the Group.

I do not recall any objection from the Chief Justice when, in 1968, I was invited by Patrick Anin, then Commissioner for Foreign Affairs to join his delegation to the OAU Heads of States Meeting in Algiers. There was a question of refugees which had bedevilled the OAU for some time coming up and Patrick thought I could be helpful to him on the subject. Neither General Afrifa, who was the Head of State at the time, nor any other member of the NLC was attending as the Head of State. So that Patrick was spending the first week in Algiers at the preparatory meeting of Foreign Ministers and following that up for the scheduled few days of the following week in place of the Head of State of Ghana at the meeting of the Heads. Harry Amonoo was the senior political adviser of the Ghana delegation. Our journey there and back was a sufficient adverse commentary on communications between African States at the time which had not been redressed thirty years later. To get to Algiers on time, we had to travel through Rome. I stayed with Patrick at a hotel in the centre of Rome. Our good Canadian friend, Jean Steckle, was there working for the FAO and this gave me the opportunity to visit her. We had either to return the same was or to travel via Paris. As Patrick had to inspect the Ghana Embassy in Paris on the return journey, we were booked through Paris. In Algeria, we stayed at the Club du Pins, a beautiful enclave near Algiers, which was supposed to be a high class holiday resort but well suited for conferences of this nature. The Acting Ambassador, ***,~[* name missing ]~ and his wife entertained us well. Patrick was very kind to me. He asked me to share the house which he was allocated as Foreign Minister and we ate, discussed and went about together. We found that the Algerians ate a lot of mutton. The food prepared for us, almost invariably, was mutton either with couscous or rice washed down with some Algerian red wine. The wine we found quite good. We ate so much mutton that we got a bit fed up with it. I remember an occasion when we went round the neighbouring villages, looking for sardines which we, Achimotans, were quite fond of. I believe it was in the village of Stauli, where we also got some Algerian shirts, that we bought the sardines. When the staff who served us our meals appeared that day, we told them that they need not bring us anything with our rice, we would provide our own accompaniment. They were astonished to find us eating rice with sardines which they must have considered far inferior to the mutton sauce they had prepared for us. We were quite happy, like old school children to eat our sardines for a change. For the few days that Patrick stayed in the Head of State's allocated accommodation, I continued to stay at the Foreign Minister's. The Algerians, I found were fond of horse riding and gun-fire. We were entertained to a tattoo which had a series of horsemen and gun-firing that I got a bit tired of them.

The conference itself concentrated on political matters. The refugee problem was briefly mentioned and then adjourned to the next meeting of Heads of States.

As we were going back to Ghana through Paris, I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to visit Stella's mother and Nora. So I paid the extra air fare for this extension. I had an experience which at the time was most frustrating but which probably would have been amusing if I was not the person affected. I was to part from Patrick in Paris and to continue my journey to Finland. When we got to Paris, I bade Patrick good-bye but, as a member of his delegation, I found that I had been ushered together with the rest of the delegation to the VIP lounge. I was assured that some protocol man would take care of my transfer problem to the Finnish airline, and my ticket was collected for the purpose. We arrived in Paris about mid-day and the Finnair plane was leaving at 3 p.m. so I thought there was a lot of time. No change of airport or terminal was involved. So after the customary champagne, Patrick and his delegation stopping in Paris left me in the VIP lounge to await my onward flight. By 1.30 pm., the man who collected my ticket had not returned with it. I started getting anxious. By 2 pm., I thought I should do something about finding him. I left the lounge and started asking about where one would go if one had to check in with Finnair. But there was no airline agent within the departure lounge. I was advised to go outside to see the various airlines. That I did. There was no obvious agent dealing with Finnair. As I went from airline to airline trying to find out the one with which I had been checked in, I became aware of the scepticism with which they all regarded me. They treated me as if I was trying to get a free ride to Helsinki. I was rushing around with increasing desperation to find the man who had my ticket until I heard the Finnair flight leave. My luggage was no doubt on it. These were times when I knew nothing about credit or charge cards. I continued looking around for my prospective help who still had my ticket. At 4 pm., I saw him walk into the Airport. I went to him, in some fury, and asked what he had done with my ticket. In some surprise, he started fumbling in his jacket pocket until he found my ticket. He apologised explaining that he had gone to lunch and had forgotten about my ticket. I did not think that he could provide me with any comfort. I seized my ticket and went back to where he directed me to be the Finnair agent. Fortunately, I had my flight changed to the following day. I had no French money as I examined my options. I thought that the best course was to try to get to the Ghana Embassy and seek some assistance from there. Fortunately, I was rescued by a Ghanaian journalist who had attended the OAU Conference. He paid for me to get to the Embassy. When I got there, Patrick Anin was on an inspection tour with Patrick Seddoh, the Ambassador. Both of them burst out laughing at my plight. I did not see the funny side of it. I asked Patrick Seddoh for a loan to get a change of underwear and a shirt and for my hotel accommodation. He said I need not worry, I could stay with him for the night. He and Patrick Anin were having dinner that evening, obviously to discuss business; his wife, Charity, was not included. I could take Charity out for dinner, for which he would pay. He gave me money for pyjamas, a shirt and a change of underwear. I was lucky I knew the Seddohs. The evening passed pleasantly. Next day I continued to Finland, where I spent some happy days staying with Momma and Nora for a few days before returning to Ghana.

These diversions from judicial work helped relieve me of its boredom. But I was soon to be given a longer period of absence from it. The Dean of the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana at this time was Brian Simpson who was a contemporary of mine at Oxford. He had the reputation of having topped our year in the jurisprudence examination. He had come to Legon under an arrangement between the University and the Law Faculty of Oxford University for the exchange of staff and general co-operation programme. Brian came to see me in Chambers one day to ask me whether I would like to come to the Law Faculty as the Professor and Dean. He explained that as soon as he took up the appointment, he realised that it was not a job for an expatriate. He thought the job required someone who knew people in Ghana and who could interact with them to produce the best opportunities for the Faculty. Besides, he gave me the impression that he would like to be back at Oxford. I later learnt that, when the incumbent Professor of Jurisprudence was about to retire, Rupert Cross had proposed Brian as a successor but, not being around, his “campaign” for election to the chair could not develop the required momentum. Ronald Dworkin became the next Professor of Jurisprudence. I later also had a chat with Alex Kwapong, who told me that there was a certain amount of uncertainty in the Faculty about who should succeed Brian because there were a few lecturers of the same standing who were laying claims to the office. He himself preferred George Kofi Ansah Ofosu-Amaah. But George had not, at the time, done more than the others to establish his supremacy. Kwapong wanted me to hold the fort temporarily to stabilise the Faculty while George produced a few more papers which he was sure would make him the unchallenged claimant and then I could go back to the bench. Kwapong's plan was that while I held the position of Dean, George Ofosu-Amaah would go abroad, preferably to either Oxford, with which Legon had a relationship, or Cambridge and, there, do work which would result in a publication or publications which would clearly lift him above his apparent competitors like Ekow Daniels, Thomas Mensah and Sam Gyandoh. Then he would be appointed the next Dean. But that was not to be. With the advent of the Busia government after the 1969 election, George was appointed, also on secondment, as the head of Special Branch. He did not return to the University until long after I had left the Deanship in 1973. I was attracted by Kwapong-Simpson proposal.

Having secured my consent, Alex and Brian approached Chief Justice Akufo Addo, who agreed with the arrangement. I was told that I would be called upon from time to time to sit on cases. But my time would be primarily devoted to the University. Some time later, after everything appeared to have been arranged, a formal letter came from Alex Kwapong, as Vice-Chancellor to Chief Justice Akufo Addo, asking about my suitability for the appointment as Professor and Dean. I am sure this was just to keep the University books in order. But Akufo Addo exploded. If the University had any doubts at all about my suitability, he was going to cancel the arrangement and take me back full time on my judicial duties. He refused to write me a testimonial and I agreed with him. He had not initiated this secondment. It was initiated by the University itself. I do not think the University ever got its required formal letter for its books.

Constitutional changes took place in Ghana during this time. The Constitutional Commission set up under Chief Justice Akufo Addo had devised a constitution which had both a President, necessarily of a mainly ceremonial kind, and a Prime Minister. A Supreme Court which Akufo Addo had always cherished as the court to perform the functions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was placed above the Court of Appeal as the final appellate court. Political activity had been allowed for some time and political rallies were held by the new parties for the parliamentary elections which followed. Kofi Abrefa Busia, who had for some time enjoyed the patronage of the NLC Government in carrying on his political programme under the guise of educating the population in their civic rights and obligations, formed a political party of the Danquah-Busia tradition. The CPP, whose name and insignia were prohibited, raised its banner under Komla Agbeli Gbedema, Nkrumah's lieutenant of earlier days who became his mortal enemy in the latter part of his regime and fled the country. The rallies held showed that the support which both leaders had was about equal, although some thought that Gbedema's supporters were, if anything, slightly larger. Busia won the election handsomely. Some explained the inconsistency between the crowds which appeared at Gbedema's rallies and the poor vote his party got on the ground that at the time of the registration of voters, CPP voters were so dispirited and disillusioned by Nkrumah's overthrow and the many commissions of enquiry which had been set into the affairs of the previous regime that they did not bother to vote. Although they showed their enthusiasm for politics when political activity was restored, they could not vote at the elections when they were called. Busia became Prime Minister.

After a brief transition period when Ghana operated a Presidential Commission constituted by Afrifa, Harlley and Ocran in which the Commission members jointly exercised the functions of President, Akufo Addo was chosen as the President. I was terribly upset by this appointment. I had a firm belief in the development of the law through a strong judicial system and I, perhaps unreasonably, thought that he was the person to lead such a system. As a result, his choice for the presidency seemed to me to be a betrayal. For several months, I refused to see him. On later reflection, I had to admit that my attitude towards Akufo Addo was churlish. He had always been a politician and, obviously, aspired to the highest office in the land which he could attain. He had never given me an indication that the Chief Justiceship was the limit of his ambitions. I therefore had no real cause to criticise him, however much I regretted his departure.

Upon the new Constitution establishing the Supreme Court as the top court, the first judges were appointed in 1970. New judges were appointed to it. E. A. L. Bannerman, who was at the time in charge of the Law School was eventually appointed Chief Justice. My childhood memory of him was of a lawyer dressed immaculately in his white shirt and tabs, and trouser-line~[* word “trouseline” replaced ]~ and black jacket walking regularly down the Boundary Road (now Kojo Thompson Avenue) from Adabraka to the Courts. I recall that he had, before I went to England to study, done some work for the then Attorney General's Office and had been a good Senior Magistrate. I had appeared before him once when Kow Swanzy and I were prosecuting a case of illegal possession of diamonds. The diamonds in question were a number of small, dirty off-white stones (almost like pieces from a broken bottle) in a small medicine bottle. He made no mistake that I could complain of in that case. He had subsequently been sent to Tanzania upon the recommendation of Chief Justice Sarkodie Adoo when Tanzania requested a High Court judge from Ghana. The matter had come before the General Legal Council, of which I was then a member, and the Chief Justice had made it clear that Bannerman was the only person he could spare. I heard reports of Tanzania's displeasure at Ghana sending them someone who had never been a High Court judge when they asked for such a judge. Justice E. A. L Bannerman was, no doubt, a very senior lawyer. He was called to the English Bar on 26 January 1939 and enrolled as a practitioner in the Gold Coast on 20 July 1939. He was indeed senior in the profession to Mr. Koi Larbi, who was called to the English Bar on 25 January, 1942 and was enrolled in the Gold Coast on 28 June 1946; to Justice Siriboe, who was called to the English Bar on 17 November 1949 and enrolled with the Gold Coast Bar on 3 February 1950; and to Justice V. C. R. A. C. Crabbe, who was called to the English Bar on 8 February 1955 and enrolled in Ghana on 3 June 1955. Some may argue from the basis that the very fact that he had not achieved preferment on the Superior Court benches in Ghana before must have been due to prejudice against him. I, however, knew little more about his ability to hold the high office to which he was shortly to be appointed. The 1969 Constitution came into force on or about 29 August 1969. The first appointments to the new Supreme Court, were made on 5 August 1970. The only member of the existing Court of Appeal, then the highest Court in the land, who found favour with the appointing authorities was Justice J. B. Siriboe. The other appointments were Justices Bannerman, Koi Larbi and VCRAC Crabbe. There were questions asked about the omission of three members of the Court of Appeal, namely, Justices Ollennu, Azu Crabbe and Fred Apaloo. Personally, I would consider any of those three a better lawyer and judge than any of the appointees. Justice Bannerman was made to act as Chief Justice from the group of judges appointed and on 26 March 1971, he was confirmed as Chief Justice. Thereafter, on 5 April 1971, other appointments to the Court were announced: Justices H. K. Prempeh, was brought in from retirement imposed on 1 March 1964, to join the Court, and Justices Azu Crabbe and Fred Apaloo were promoted from the Court of Appeal bench. The final apointments to the Supreme Court were Justices K. Bentsi-Enchill and P. D. Anin. For some reason, Justice Ollennu continued to be shunned. With the promotions from the Court of Appeal, fresh appointments were made to that Court, including E.P.L. (Sonny) Sowah, Archer and Annie Jiaggie.

I did not expect any promotion from the Busia Government and so I was not disappointed by being left out. I think the Busia Government was aware of the fact that I had been a stumbling block to its ambitions while I acted as Attorney General in the NLC Government. In any case, my controversial appointment to the highest Court in the land in October 1966 was to some more than enough recognition of whatever talent I had for the time being. Besides, I was happily preoccupied as the Dean of the Legon Law Faculty.

The Supreme Court did not do much work before it was abolished. It did not last long. An examination of the Ghana Law Reports will not yield many cases elucidating or laying down legal principles which would mould legal thought in Ghana. After Acheampong's coup in January, 1972, it was announced on the radio on 12 September, 1972 that the Court had been abolished by the National Redemption Council. Those of the judges of the Court who had reached retiring age were asked to retire. Those not of retiring age who held previous office were asked to revert to those offices. Those Supreme Court judges who did not hold such office were invited to apply to the Judicial Service Commission for appointment. But now I have jumped a few years in my narrative of events and must return to my years at the University.

At the University, Alex Kwapong's well-laid plans of getting George Ofosu-Amaah to produce more legal papers to establish his ascendancy in the race for the Deanship was postponed by George's appointment for a year to head the Special Branch of the Police. Harlley and Deku who had been members of the NLC Government retired and had nothing more to do officially with the Police. The remaining old top echelon of Special Branch consisting of Deegbe, Mawuenyegah and Habib were removed. It is my belief, perhaps misguided, that in this reorganisation of Special Branch, the seeds of the apparent lack of forewarning of the Branch of the impending coup of 1972 were sown. When the first year ended, Busia made a plea to Alex Kwapong that George was needed in the position as head of Special Branch and George's term was extended for another year.

George's acceptance of the appointment as head of Special Branch in Busia's government, changed the course of this simple academic plan. I recall attending a party in London given by John Thompson while I was Dean, at which I met quite a number of officers of MI5 who had previously served in the British High Commission in Ghana. Some of the invitees were obviously embarrassed to see me there because they had behaved, while in Accra, as if they were ordinary diplomats. One of them always gave the story that he was only a temporary cadet in the British diplomatic service wanting to get a permanent appointment but each time he sat an examination or was given an interview, which coincided with the periods when he had to visit London, he failed. Being a very nice person, this story generated a lot of sympathy. John Thompson, on the other hand, did not take it amiss that I was there, because he thought in my position as Director of Public Prosecutions, I had known who all these people really were. I remember that when his other guests were leaving, he asked me to stay behind for a while. At that time, we started discussing his guests and I mentioned the story of the one guest who passed himself off as a temporary cadet of the diplomatic course. John laughed and said he thought I knew all the time that that fellow was one of them. But the point of mentioning this story was that among John Thomson's guests that evening was a Deputy Director of MI5 who talked to me about Ghana. He knew George Ofosu-Amaah and he knew that he had been seconded from the Law Faculty. So he asked me whether I thought George would come back to the Faculty and when I answered that the Prime Minister obviously wanted him to stay on as long as possible, he replied, “I don't think he would like to come back. He is enjoying himself too much catching Russian spies.” This was a reference to a recent expulsion of some Soviet diplomats from Ghana for spying. But George's tenure at Special Branch was involuntarily terminated by the 1972 coup and after the usual unpleasant detention for a period, went abroad and lectured in among other places, the University of Kent at Canterbury where the former Dean at Legon, Brian Simpson, was then a professor. He, eventually, succeeded to the Deanship of the Legon Law Faculty after Ekow Daniels and other temporary holders.

I had difficulties with giving wholehearted support to the Busia administration. It contained most of the intelligentsia of the country. Yet, I was unconvinced that under pressure they would not repeat the same undesirable practices as Nkrumah did. I was prepared to give some allowance for the actions of the CPP; after all, apart from his native wisdom, what sort of knowledge did Krobo Edusei have when he became a Minister? I was, however, not able to give the same latitude to such well educated men like Akufo Addo, Willie Ofori Atta, Victor Owusu and others whom I thought should know better. My suspicion was that the latter group would be quite arrogant about whatever wrongheaded action they chose to take. In short, by background and education, I should belong to the Danquah-Busia tradition. Most of my friends belonged to that group. In fact, I found myself an alien.

J.H. Mensah became the Minister of Finance and I immediately withdrew contact with him. Apart from being my very good friend, I had always had a great respect for his intellect, knowledge and power of expression. But I thought of him as an academic. I always said that Pius Okigbo of Nigeria and himself, both of them close friends of mine, were the greatest economists that Africa had produced. I wanted him to make his name in that field and not in politics which, to my mind, demanded too many compromises of conscience. J.H. had always had unusual working hours. One heard that he came to the office late towards evening and expected his Principal Secretary, Amon Nikoi, my old classmate, to be present to work with him. I remember an occasion when he phoned me in the middle of the night and asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was sleeping. I asked him whether anything was wrong and he answered, oh no, he just thought I could come round for a drink. I thanked him but added that I intended to continue sleeping. So it was not difficult for me to believe that his working hours were unusual. I also heard that J.H. and Amon Nikoi were not getting on well. That distressed me as I liked them both. But I did not think I could do anything about it. I kept myself away so much from J.H. that I was surprised that a knowledgeable diplomat like Joris Vos of the Netherlands, later to become his country's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, then Russia and the other States into which the Union was broken, and later to the United States, did not realise, after our long association, that I even knew him.

Joris and Yvonne were with us one evening when, in the course of a conversation, he said that the one person he would very much like to meet was J.H. I was surprised because J.H. had been Minister for quite some time by now, Joris was smart and, I thought, capable of making his own arrangements to meet any political figure of importance. I said I could arrange a meeting with J.H. that very evening if J.H. was at home. He could not believe it. I got on the phone and found J.H. at home, I asked him what he was doing and whether I could bring some friends to meet him. He said, of course. So Joris, Yvonne, Stella and I got into our cars and drove to J.H.'s residence which was quite a short distance from where we lived. J.H. met us at the door. He had some political associates whom I did not want to meet with him, which disappointed me. So I suggested that we would go away and come back another time. I do not know whether J.H. seeing a couple of Europeans in tow thought that I had come to ask a favour on their behalf. He made a curious statement; he was speaking to me in Ga and asked us not to go because I never know but tomorrow he might not be there. I immediately attacked him and asked whether I could not now come and have a drink with him without asking a favour. He was so relieved to hear that that he asked us to go straight upstairs to his bedroom area and wait. We had a very delightful evening with him when he eventually turned up, chatting about anything and nothing, like old times. It probably was the most impressive act that I performed in the view of Joris.

A test which faced Busia's administration was the economy. Ghana was heavily in debt and was finding it difficult to meet its obligations. There was talk of a renunciation of debts. “Kafu didi” (a debtor was entitled to eat) was the slogan which the party in power preached. A measure which Government thought would relieve the economic situation was to expel all aliens, especially the large number of Africans from neighbouring countries who worked on the cocoa farms. The theory was that if these were expelled, jobs would become available for Ghanaians. What Government had not calculated on was whether those jobs done by our brother Africans from neighbouring countries were jobs which Ghanaians were dying to do but could not because of the presence of the aliens. Those from neighbouring countries without residence papers were asked to leave. Those who did not leave were rounded up, herded in camps and deported to their countries in, at times, circumstances of considerable cruelty. All neighbouring Africans in that category were affected and it caused a great deal of resentment. On a visit to Nigeria some ten years later, I was met, whenever I identified myself as a Ghanaian, with sermons by Nigerians on how badly Ghana had treated them. The act of Government was one which inflicted very deep wounds in Ghana's relationships with its neighbours. I do not think it achieved the result which Government expected. When Nigeria retaliated in a similar manner, some years later, expelling Ghanaians without the necessary papers, we must have understood what pain and suffering we had previously caused.

But the tone of the Busia Government was for me set by the case of *** HERE TAKE IN WRITING IN THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE COURTS~[* HERE TAKE IN WRITING IN THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE COURTS ]~