Alban Bagbin
Of all the arms of government the judiciary holds an exceptional role regardless of Montesquieu’s principle of separation of powers.
As an interpreter of the laws and for that matter the country’s Magna Carta, the Constitution, the aggrieved, the government and opposition, turn to this arm for intervention through interpretation.
It is an arm which therefore requires deference from all citizens of the country. We may disagree with its rulings but we should abide by them to ensure decency in governance.
In the past few days however, we were shocked by the scathing intervention of the Speaker from his base in Dubai and former President John Mahama.
Although the Speaker’s attack was seemingly directed at the President, its ultimate target was the Supreme Court.
We would have rather he directed the shots at the apex court rather than the merry-go-round. Perhaps he was scared about the outcome of such foolhardiness.
As a Speaker, and one with an unquestionable legal background, it surprises us that Alban Bagbin will choose such unwholesome expressions as he disagrees with the President.
We have taken note of the President’s decision to avoid jumping into the fray of the legal arguments as being done by others in the media before the ruling. Doing so would have opened a fresh chapter in the subject, one steeped in partisanship which would in the end deny us the opportunity to appreciate the subject productively.
Speaker Bagbin needs to be reminded about the role of the judiciary so he would stop befuddling the vulnerable with his weak premises.
To describe the President’s post-ruling argument as myopic is to display fully one’s faltering stance on the academics of the subject under review.
Speaker Bagbin expects the Deputy Speaker under the circumstances to disown the people of Bekwai he represents in Parliament because the NDC has a project to execute.
By and large Speaker Bagbin is exhibiting his inability to hide his partisan robe even as he pretends not to be doing so.
President Akufo-Addo’s argument, sound as it stood during his interview with the reporter of this newspaper, did not under any circumstance seek to project his political party but to rather expose the soundness of the argument which informed the decision of the Supreme Court.
Does it not sound ironic that Speaker Bagbin while disagreeing with the Supreme Court in one breath nonetheless, counsels his NDC stable mates to seek a review of the Supreme Court decision?
He does not have confidence in the judiciary yet wants the Supreme Court to review its decision.
At the time that the NDC went to the Supreme Court to uphold the ‘win’ of John Mahama in 2012 as the latter wore his snow white apparel, they did not find anything wrong with the apex court.
Today in the face of a ruling that is distasteful to them, President Akufo-Addo is myopic in Bagbin words. Could the Speaker be suffering from a cognitive ailment? Or plain mischief?