The Minority Leader, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, has denounced the removal of Chief Justice Gertrude Esaaba Torkornoo, describing as a it a vicious political action.
Despite government’s quest to reset the country and make the necessary changes to spur development, the Effutu Member of Parliament says that responsibility must come with fairness.
Speaking during a visit by the UK Minister for International Development to the Speaker of Parliament on Thursday, September 11, he said the excesses of the current administration must be looked at.
“The excesses of institutions where government has to take responsibility can be improved upon. And of course, we, the Minority, are not satisfied or happy with how the Chief Justice was recently removed. We see it as more of politics than really ensuring that there’s some accountability.”
“Once you’ve been in office for eight years, we expect that a new government coming in with its reset policy may want to investigate and all, it’s part of the politics; they must. But we also expect that the law will be applied in a humane way,” he said.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin believes that “the excesses where the hardliners take the centre and they take the base when a government comes into office must be a thing of the past.”
He however admitted that “some of these excesses happened in our time, our eight years in office, but we cannot continue with the vicious cycle of ‘you do me, I do you’. There are key governance issues that I believe as a democracy we can focus on to improve the lives of our people.”
Bail conditions
He also condemned the use of law enforcement agencies to arrest and detain members of the past government with onerous bail conditions.
“For instance, on the issue of justice [and] human rights, I mean, just yesterday I saw one of my regional chairpersons [who] had been handcuffed and [was] being pushed into Black Maria. These are things that I feel we don’t need. It’s a blot on our democracy. We don’t need it.”
“So, for instance, if you are investigating someone, you ask the person to report. You don’t just handcuff a person when they are going to come to you for investigation, and then you say, I have put a bail bond of say, GHC50,000 on you, look for property before I do anything,” he noted.
The Mighty Minority
Alexander Afenyo-Markin stated that his side in Parliament is experiencing turbulence due to the Majority’s persistence to claim more of their seats.
Despite losing the Akwatia by-election which has affected the Minority’s numbers, he says they still remain a mighty few.
“On our side as Minority, we are going through some turbulence. We were in office for eight years, we lost elections – quite disappointing; and we came in with 88 [members] and the Majority would not let us have our peace; they just snatched one seat from us.”
“But it is what it is; so, we are now back to mighty 87. We draw a lot of inspiration from our friends in government today…. when there is a history of precedence, you can only be inspired to work hard.”
