The ‘Animal Farm ruling’ headline in yesterday’s edition of the Daily Guide was just apt.
There could not have been a better description in a few words of the reasoning behind the Circuit Court judge in denying suspect Abronye bail.
We are pained that a not-too-appealing reasoning from a member of the bench would become a subject of public discourse within and outside the country.
Lawyers and students of the subject have showed interest in the matter.
That both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) nailed the reasoning, speaks volumes about the quality of the judicial decision.
The judge could have chosen any literature but George Orwell’s Animal Farm to support his decision.
It would appear that he read the book long ago and could have forgotten its import and therefore inappropriateness for his reasoning in denying the suspect bail.
No wonder he came under massive fire when his decision hit both social and mainstream media.
The administration of justice is critical in every democratic dispensation, and so those charged with this task must do so without any shred of a fault that would give the public cause for rebuke.
We cannot remember a reasoning that has generated such heat on the public space in recent times.
Equality before the law is a standard canon and, any action or even remark which goes against this, should be condemned with all the strength at the disposal of citizens.
Even more worrying is the position that in the thinking of the judge, the law must be applied differently as far as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) is concerned.
The ruling has been described in some quarters as a kangaroo one. Those who hold this view are many, and it cuts across the two dominant political parties in the country.
While some think the judge is not fit to be a member of the bench, others say he should give way.
The action and reasoning of the Circuit Court judge demands public scrutiny. If a judge can think that the law must be applied differently because of the statuses of persons, then we have a problem on the bench.
How has this thinking affected the rulings and judgments administered by the judge over the years since he took up the onerous task of administering justice?
George Orwell’s thought-provoking literature is about totalitarianism, with the pigs rebelling against Mr. Jones, the farm owner, to establish their own government with Old Major leading the charge.
With the passage of time, the ‘all animals are equal’ dictum as enshrined in the seven commandments was revised to give special status to Napoleon and the pigs. A dictatorship was born, an outright abuse. Is that what the Circuit Court judge was referring to and subtly glorifying?
As a novella, the literature was based on the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism, as the author critiques the manner in which power can corrupt even those with good positive projects for the rest of society; the pigs were special and, therefore, above the law.