Your threats to Media unnecessary – Ben Ephson to Judicial Service

Veteran journalist Ben Ephson has described as unnecessary threats contained in the caution statement by the Judicial Service to media houses.

According to him, the Judicial Service could have demanded better exercise of discretion by the media without threatening them.

The Judicial Service has in a statement called on media houses to remove stories they describe as inciteful or insulting towards judges.

“We must notify you, and we hereby do, that should you fail to heed our client’s demand as specified in paragraph 14 above, we have our client’s instructions to take appropriate action to ensure that you do not abuse the right to free speech by deploying and/or permitting your platform to be deployed in a manner that not only threatens our constitutional order and democracy but obviously, adversely interferes with the due administration of justice and also, brings it, into disrepute,” a part of the statement said.

Commenting on the development, the pollster said even though he agrees with the context of the statement, it could have been done without the threats.

“I believe the judicial services should be taken through the nuances of how the media works. The judicial service had made their point clear but that threat in their statement was unnecessary. I think the GJA should let them see their workings,” he told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Monday.

Also commenting, lawyer and journalist Samson Lardi said the Judicial Service should have cited the offending media houses.

“I wish in their petition, they’d have mentioned the specific media houses and given examples of what they have done. It would’ve been better if we got to know the content and those who are carrying it. But for the enquiry I made, I wouldn’t have known my platform wasn’t part.”