Lawyer Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo has explained the reasons former Attorney General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong 'rejected' National Honours that were presented by president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on March 14, 2023.

The lawyer, who is a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Communications Team, stated in a Facebook post dated March 14 that the former AG and lawyer Fui Tsikata had made some demands that the government refused to accept, hence their stance on the awards.

Edudzi stated that the two lawyers wanted some persons they worked with on the international boundary dispute case for which they were being honoured, to be included as awardees but he stopped short of naming the said persons.

"The above mentioned individuals did ask the Award Committee to include the people they worked with during the litigation as part of the awardees. Mr Akufo Addo refused to include those individuals," Edudzi wrote in reaction to a post by presidential staffer Charles Nii Teiko Tagoe.

Teiko Tagoe's earlier post about the 'rejection' by the two lawyers read: "Lawyer Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong and Lawyer Fui Tsikata wrote to decline the National Honours awards as Members of Ghana’s legal team at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Sad!"

What Akufo-Addo said about the ITLOS team

The president celebrated three groups of people at the National Honours and Awards event, from the COVID-19 heroes and heroines through to eminent Ghanaians and the group of lawyers.

He described the latter as "men and women who made sure that the maritime boundary dispute with our immediate, western neighbour, the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire ended favourably for the Republic of Ghana, thereby, ensuring that our western maritime resources, including its oil and gas potential, rightfully remained in our possession."

GhanaWeb has sighted an event brochure that listed the 18-members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) Technical Team and Legal Advisors, who were awarded.

See the list below:





About Marietta Brew:

She became the 23rd Attorney General of Ghana and Minister for Justice of the Republic in 2013.

Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong was appointed by former president Mahama in 2013 and she served in the role throughout the first term of the Mahama administration.

She is also the second woman to hold this position after Betty Mould-Iddrisu.

She served on the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce from 1 July 2018 for a three-year term.

About Fui Tsikata

The Africa Arbitration Association, wrote of Fui: "Mr Fui Tsikata is senior partner at Reindorf Chambers, the Ghana member firm of the DLA Piper Africa Group of law firms.

He has been a member of the Ghana Bar since January 1975.

"He was one of Ghana’s advocates in the proceedings at the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) relating to the maritime boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire conducted between December 2014 and September 2017.

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Meanwhile, catch up on the concluding part of Francis Addai-Nimoh's interview on GhanaWeb TV below:





SARA