ACCA is notorious for keeping its members in the dark. Its in-house magazine pushes out all kind of propaganda designed by the management. But it rarely gives any glimpse of the tactics pursued by it.

Now the ACCA leadership has surpassed itself. In a court case brought (in the 1990s) by a former student, the leadership argued that the courts could not intervene in the internal affairs of the ACCA. It argued that only a Visitor appointed by the Sovereign had the authority to adjudicate disputes because ACCA has a royal charter.. Such a position is blatantly wrong in law. But ACCA hired lawyers to argue this and incredibly judges accepted this. The result of this arrogance has been that the plaintiff could not get his grievance heard properly. the ACCA's official magazine did not report the case. The leadership despite spending a fortune on glossy magazines kept quiet about the episode.

AABA has obtained a copy of the judgment in the case of Adebayo Bankole v Chartered Association of Certified Accountants. The full judgment can be read here ( Click here: You need an acrobat reader).

However, the problem does not end here. The courts accepted the ACCA's arguments that they cannot intervene in its internal affairs and that only a Visitor appointed by the Sovereign (usually the Lord Chancellor's Department does this on behalf of the Sovereign) can. This meant that anyone with a grievance against the ACCA needed to approach the Sovereign (Her Majesty the Queen) directly. This inevitably puts the Sovereign in an invidious position in she is seen to be overriding the due process of the law. This would have also possibly violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

The issues were tested by two ACCA members who directly approached Her Majesty the Queen about their grievances. ACCA did not have a leg to stand on. It spent more than £100,000 to obtain a legal opinion which basically said that its original position was flawed. ACCA had to urge the Lord Chancellor not to intervene in its affairs and the Lord Chancellor agreed with that position. The result of this is that Mr. Bankole could not get his case heard in the court. Two concerned members could not use the due process of the law either. So much for ACCA's accountability.

AABA is obtaining further documentation relating to this matter and will make it publicly available in due course. Scholarly papers based upon the evidence will also be written and presented to international conferences. This would provide useful material about the mindset of the ACCA's controllers and  their concerns about accountability.

Meanwhile, the public should be concerned at the arrogance of  ACCA management which believed that the legal processes of the courts somehow did not apply to ACCA..

To this day, the ACCA has failed to come up with any processes that help to resolve disputes between ACCA management and members.