Private legal practitioner Thaddeus Sory has called on lawyers to pursue established legal avenues when contesting judicial decisions instead of launching media campaigns, applying public pressure, or organising boycotts.
He argued that any disagreement with a ruling by a judge or the Chief Justice should first be handled through the correct legal procedures. Public commentary, he said, risks raising tensions without actually settling the underlying issue.
Sory’s remarks come against the backdrop of controversy surrounding Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie’s decision to allow certain High Court judges to sit during the legal vacation. Lawyers representing former National Signals Bureau Director-General Kwabena Adu-Boahene and former National Food Buffer Stock Company CEO Hanan Abdul-Wahab have opposed the arrangement and requested that their cases be postponed until the new legal year begins in October.
Speaking on the KSM Show on Monday, 17 August 2026, Mr Sory noted that lawyers unhappy with decisions affecting their matters have several formal options. Those with concerns about the Chief Justice’s directive should first raise their objections within the judicial system and place them before the judge handling the case.
A lawyer who feels a judge has acted improperly, he explained, can contest the decision through the proper legal mechanisms rather than turning straight to the media. Appeals and other court processes remain available where appropriate.
“The judge is going to write the ruling. You can challenge it,” he stated.
Sory also questioned the tendency to accuse the judiciary of political interference or bias before all available legal remedies have been tried. He suggested that dissatisfied lawyers could approach the Chief Justice directly to discuss the directive.
“If you are not happy with the Chief Justice’s decision, you can actually go and meet up with the Chief Justice and say, look, as parties, we want to come and discuss this directive,” he said.
He encouraged the profession to engage the system properly before concluding that an administrative decision was driven by political motives.
“Why don’t we engage the system in the appropriate way?” he asked.
Public comments on sensitive court matters, he added, can sometimes inflame emotions instead of helping to resolve the dispute.
“Maybe the idea is to just inflame passions to get people to think the way they want them to think,” he observed.
