Bright Simons Defends AG’s Public Commentary on Prosecutions, Urges Greater Transparency
Policy activist and Honorary Vice President of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Bright Simons, has mounted a robust defence of the Attorney General’s (AG) recent public statements on high-profile prosecutions, describing the AG’s efforts to justify legal actions to the public as both necessary and legitimate.
In a post on microblogging platform X, formerly Twitter, Mr Simons argued that the Attorney General, as the State’s legal representative, acts on behalf of the public and therefore owes it a duty of transparency.
“The Attorney General of Ghana is a lawyer hired to take people who cause harm to us – the public – to court and convince judges that such people deserve to be punished,” Mr Simons stated. “He is the public’s agent, our agent.”
According to him, criticisms against the AG’s recent press briefings—where reasons for pending prosecutions were disclosed—are unfounded. He contends that informing the public of the rationale behind such legal actions builds public trust and accountability, especially in a country where prosecutorial powers are wielded by a political appointee.
“The idea that everything should be confined to the courtroom, an adversarial forum, is ridiculous. The proceedings in the courtroom are not always lucid to lay people,” Mr Simons asserted.
He stressed that it is not only appropriate, but crucial, for the AG to engage the public ahead of court proceedings to reassure citizens that the prosecutions being pursued are based on sound legal reasoning and not political expediency.
“This is even more essential in a country where prosecutions are led by a politician, and there are always worries that he will abuse such powers for political reasons,” he noted.
Mr Simons further attributed opposition to public legal disclosures to a culture of passive citizenship and weak democratic accountability.
“Such anxieties can only occur in a society where people have become used to being passive citizens. Where people don’t understand accountability. Where citizens don’t know that they have a right to know what is being done in their name by their political agents,” he remarked.
His comments come amid heightened public interest in recent prosecutions led by the Attorney General, including the high-profile GHS 560 million financial scandal involving former officials of the National Service Authority (NSA).
