Former President John Dramani Mahama has discredited the judiciary once again, saying that the image of the country’s judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has been badly damaged.
He believes that the judiciary is lately subjected to public ridicule by people who have lost confidence in the dispensation of justice.
Mr. Mahama started attacking the judiciary after he lost the 2020 elections petition by unanimously decision at the apex court.
He did not only attack the judiciary but descended also on Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah.
According to him, it is time the Judiciary go under self-cleansing but said Justice Anin-Yeboah cannot lead that process.
He said these at opening the 2nd Annual Lawyers Conference of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday August 28.
The two-day event is on the theme: ‘The NDC@30: The Past, the Present, the Future, the Role of the 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 the unanimous FC, verdicts which mostly involve cases of a political nature in our Supreme court, this is an unfortunate but serious development.
“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
“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.”
The former President took on the General Legal Council (GLC), accusing them of tying the hands of would-be lawyers behind them is not a good omen for the future of legal practice in Ghana.
He said it will be difficult to raise “confident, independent and creative” lawyers if they cannot contest “oppressive rules” churned out by the GLC.
Mr. Mahama accused the Council of being under excessive government control, the reason it appears to be intimidating trainees in becoming problem-solving practitioners.
By Vincent Kubi