Akwatia Member of Parliament Bernard Bediako Baidoo, a lawyer, has criticised Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin over his recent remarks about Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, challenging him to name a single NDC lawyer who has spoken about the judiciary the way he has.
Hon. Baidoo’s intervention follows Afenyo-Markin’s claim that Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie was part of a grand conspiracy that removed his predecessor, Gertrude Torkornoo, from office, driven by ambition for the position himself.
The Akwatia MP framed the comments as part of a pattern stretching back months, and pointedly noted that the Minority Leader is a lawyer, which he argued should carry a higher standard of restraint than the criticism voiced by non-lawyers over the years.
Hon. Baidoo opened by asking whether the Ghana Bar Association had taken note of what the Minority Leader was saying about the judiciary. He drew a sharp distinction between Afenyo-Markin’s conduct and that of NDC members who have previously criticised the courts.
“Give me one name, one lawyer, NDC lawyer,” he said, arguing that such comments over the years have come from non-lawyers, not from members of the profession he and Afenyo-Markin both belong to.
The challenge places the dispute on professional rather than purely partisan ground, invoking the same standard the GBA itself applied when it censured Afenyo-Markin in May.
Tracing a Pattern From Bail Conditions to the Chief Justice
Hon. Baidoo traced what he described as an escalating pattern. He referenced Afenyo-Markin’s remarks at a press conference over bail conditions, where the Minority Leader used language against a judge that Baidoo said he could not confirm was directed at a high court judge or a registrar, before turning to the present controversy.
“He did it,” Hon. Baidoo said. “Now he is up in arms with the Chief Justice.” The bail episode Baidoo invoked traces to May 17, 2026, when Afenyo-Markin criticised the Accra Circuit Court 9 judge handling the continued remand of NPP Bono Regional Chairman Kwame Baffoe, known as Abronye DC, saying he had no respect for the judge.
The Ghana Bar Association condemned those remarks as unprofessional and unethical, with spokesperson Saviour Kudze saying the conduct fell short of the standards expected of a senior lawyer of Afenyo-Markin’s standing.
The Minority Leader defended himself at the time, saying it was both ethical and within his constitutional rights to call out a judge with no respect for the law, and that questioning a judge’s conduct did not amount to an attack on the judiciary.
The Torkornoo Reference
Hon. Baidoo also addressed Hon. Afenyo-Markin’s stated position on Justice Gertrude Torkornoo’s removal directly, referencing a pledge to reinstate her if the NPP returns to power.
He said nobody would begrudge that promise, whether it took twenty or thirty years to fulfil, but questioned why the attack had to fall on the current occupant of the office. “Why have you zoomed in on the innocent Chief Justice?” he asked.
Justice Gertrude Torkornoo was removed from office in September 2025 following proceedings under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution. Hon. Afenyo-Markin’s remarks went further than a defence of his predecessor, alleging that Justice Baffoe-Bonnie’s role in that process was motivated by ambition for the position he now holds.
Hon. Baidoo brings his own legal credentials to the exchange. A private legal practitioner based in Koforidua before his election, he served as the NDC’s lawyer in the party’s court challenge over the 2024 Akwatia parliamentary result before winning the seat himself in a September 2025 by-election following the death of the constituency’s NPP MP.
His intervention adds a voice from within the legal profession to a controversy the GBA has previously weighed in on, at a moment when Afenyo-Markin’s comments have moved from criticism of a sitting circuit judge to an allegation of conspiracy against the head of the judiciary itself.
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