Martin Kpebu says Ghana Bar Association and Judges’ Association should negotiate over legal vacation dispute

Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has called for negotiations between the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and the Association of Judges and Magistrates to resolve the ongoing dispute over the observance of the legal vacation.

His comments come after the GBA appealed to Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie to ensure that judges adhere to established rules and traditions governing the legal vacation.

The Deputy Attorney General, Dr Justice Srem-Sai, however, has argued that a lawyer’s primary duty is to the client and that litigants’ interests should take precedence over a lawyer’s desire to take a break.

The dispute has intensified following the Chief Justice’s rejection of a request by lawyers for former Director-General of the National Signals Bureau (NSB), Kwabena Adu-Boahen, and former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company Limited (NAFCO), Hanan Abdul-Wahab, to defer their cases until after the legal vacation.

The lawyers, including Samuel Atta Akyea and former Attorney General Godfred Dame, had cited prior commitments during the vacation and asked for the cases to be adjourned until October.

Speaking on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, Mr Kpebu said the parties should avoid escalating the matter publicly because the legal vacation was not a right expressly guaranteed by law.

“I’m in the middle ground. Middle ground being that we should negotiate. We should try to find an amicable settlement,” he said.

According to him, the current position means individual lawyers have to approach the judges handling their cases to seek accommodation, but this could create difficulties because judges and lawyers have different temperaments.

“The Chief Justice’s explanation means that each lawyer should go and fight his own fight, but I know we have different fighting skills, different strengths,” Mr Kpebu said.

He proposed that the GBA redirect its engagement to the Association of Judges and Magistrates and negotiate a uniform arrangement for lawyers with cases before vacation judges.

Mr Kpebu suggested that lawyers could, for instance, agree to work for part of the two-and-a-half-month vacation and take the remaining period as a break, or agree with individual judges to complete hearings within a concentrated period.

He said such an arrangement would reduce the burden on individual lawyers who would otherwise have to negotiate separately with judges.

On the possibility of the Adu-Boahen case proceeding without defence lawyers, Mr Kpebu acknowledged that a judge sitting as a vacation judge could continue with proceedings under the current interpretation of the law.

“If you don’t, you, the accused person, do the cross-examination; if you don’t do it well, it means that you don’t intend to do it. I would discharge the witness, then the prosecution bring next witness,” he said.

Mr Kpebu maintained that the dispute was better resolved through institutional negotiations rather than prolonged public arguments.

“Nobody is ever saying that a lawyer cannot get an adjournment. No, no, that’s not the main thing. But it’s about how we go about it,” he said.