Ghana’s justice system and its justices have become a mockery under its current administration, former president, John Dramani Mahama has said.
He asserts the hope that the citizenry had in the legislature has dwindled and he has no faith in the Chief Justice to bring things to normalcy.
He made the comments Sunday, August 28, 2022, at the inaugural ceremony of the 2nd Annual Lawyers Conference of the National Democratic Congress NDC.
“Recently, so badly has the image of our judiciary deteriorated that many of our citizenry openly make mockery of our justice system and of our justices. The phrase ‘go to court’ is these days met with derisive laughter instead of hope that one will truly get justice if he went to the court.
“If people are not poking fun about politics and inducement being used to sway the hand of justice in the Lower Courts then it is poking fun and making statements about the 7:0 of the unanimous FC, verdicts which mostly involve cases of a political nature in our Supreme court, this is an unfortunate but serious development.
Advancing his comments further, Mr. Mahama described the development at as threat to Ghana’s security and democracy.
“One of the scariest existential threats to any democracy is when citizens think their judiciary holds no value for them or no use to them, this is the security threat that the National Security apparatus tried to draw the attention of the nation to recently but was poorly received by the President and his party.
“It is scary because it threatens the peace and stability of our democracy and we must quickly correct this fast spreading notion. If care is not taken, we will get to a state where people will have no qualms about taking the law into their own hands because they do not have the confidence that they can get any justice in the system
He urged the judiciary to work hard to redeem its fast eroding image, despite the lack of hope in the current leadership to restore their lost image.
‘There is therefore, the urgent need for the Ghanaian judiciary to work to win the trust and confidence of the citizenry and erase the widely-held perception of hostility and political bias in legal proceedings at the highest court of the land.
“Unfortunately, we have no hope that the current leadership of our judiciary can lead such a process of change, we can only hope that the new Chief Justice will lead the process to repair the broken image that our judiciary has acquired over the last few years,” he indicated.
By Felix Anim-Appau|Onuaonline.com
