Prof. Ernest Kofi Abotsi
Dean of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Prof. Ernest Kofi Abotsi has stated that the judiciary is seen as the least dangerous of the organs of the state.
According to him, the reason is that the judiciary autonomy has no position of its own and that its only position is that of the law.
Speaking at the maiden Speaker’s seminal lecture in Accra on Tuesday, Prof. Abotsi asserted that parliament, as an institution, is much more fragmented more often than it acts a corporate entity in the body politic of the country due to its complexity.
“The experience of Parliament, which ensures or has ensured that our politics has remained divided in a very toxic manner, and the experience which implies that the decisions of the court, however, correct, may be the subject of political wrangling,” he noted.
For him, the reality, however, is that the court will not like to share or lose its articles to unwanted jurisdiction, and therefore, striking its balance between upholding the ruling of law, while respecting coordinate engagements with other branches.
“Truly, it is the litmus test for years to come in terms of the court harmonization of our body politics,” said and added that the prevalence of the “political question doctrine” still remains involved in the scheme of the current jurisprudence.
“But it appears that the courts clearly have recognized that generally speaking, there is a scope in which parliament has exclusive authority,” the law lecturer posited.
Prof. Abtsi said, “In ensuring a certain degree of certainty, moving forward, to avoid the political destructions that arise in most cases, it is imperative perhaps we have a clear statement of circumstances under which the court is going to uphold objections founded on the political question doctrine to ensure that the conversations are removed from the realm of politics and place on the pedestal of rule of law.”
The political question doctrine holds that some questions, in their nature, are fundamentally political, and not legal, and if a question is fundamentally political then the court will refuse to hear that case by claiming that it doesn’t have jurisdiction.
The constitutional lawyer continued that “more importantly, it will also ensure that the key organs of state, namely the executive and legislature which complement the judiciary, operate in a harmonious way.”
He argued that questions about which coordinate branches may reserve internal autonomy over certain questions affecting their operations over which the judiciary cannot make overriding pronouncements may have to be resolved by recourse to “rational pragmatism” than hard one perhaps.
Reflecting on this truism, quoted Robert H. Jackson, a distinguished American lawyer, who became the prosecutor at the Special Tribunal as saying that “the life of the law is not logic, but experience.”
The experience of the political doctrine question in the court challenges the court to approach the subject, perhaps in the future, with a degree of pragmatism to reflect the complexity of our politics, he pinned
The Omanhene of Essikado Traditional Area, Nana Kobina Nketsia V, who chaired the function, said the cynicism engulfs him whenever he encounters “a body of Africans wearing the tag of politicians, most especially, the partisan candidate.”
He stated that partisan spectacles usually provide the jaundice view of the meaning of Africa and its people, and that when it is centred in adversarial politics, it becomes a quest for demonic relationships that energize social divisions due to ideas of holistic developments, greed configurations for oppression, whilst promoting violence in tandem with the culture of sadism and death.
“In keeping with our progressive development, our world seems to be meandering into the vails of hypocrisy, and truth is gradually becoming reified.
By Ernest Kofi Adu