We are befuddled. The Minority in Parliament or better put, the NDC, has proceeded to court over the E-Levy. It is a stock-in-trade they have held on to over the years although their no-love-lost relationship with the judiciary is household knowledge.
We are wondering whether besides the judiciary, headed by Chief Justice Anim Yeboah, there is an alternative we know not of and which is charged with adjudications within the Ghanaian terra firma.
Turning to an institution you have long withdrawn deference from does not sound real unless there is a concealed reason for such recourse.
We have learnt that the intention is to embarrass the learned members of the bench.
The verbal attack by the opposition NDC against the judiciary is still fresh in our memories because we are not suffering from amnesia. It is too fresh to be forgotten.
For them to turn round today and head for the court they do not have confidence in, sounds ridiculous and begs for logical expatiation.
The judiciary is an arm of government which remains unparalleled regarding the quantum of attacks it has endured from, in the beginning, the PNDC and now the NDC, a mutation of the former.
The murder of the three high court judges and the subsequent countless vitriolic and even threats by assigns of the party’s leadership in subsequent years, makes the grouping’s hatred for the judiciary even clearer.
The hot and cold remarks by the NDC about the judiciary are instructive and make it easy for us to consider the chameleon-like feature of the party an unquestionable reality.
We shudder to recall how even before the reading of the ruling at the end of the election petition hearing in 2012, former President John Mahama and his colleagues donned white apparels as they awaited the outcome they already knew. Then the judiciary was one deserving of deference.
Were it possible, we would have demanded that they append their signature to an undertaking to respect the outcome of the judicial process regarding their umbrage.
Let us strengthen our institutions especially, those which are desiderata for our democracy. When we, however, engage in irresponsible tongue-lashing and hurling of unsubstantiated accusations, we are exposing regrettably ourselves to opprobrium.
It is a matter of derision that the Minority still recognises this arm of government is the place to turn to. Don’t they deserve our vitriolic? Do they qualify to be listened to when they come seeking the nods of their compatriots?
The national interest should not be subjected to the parochial inclinations of disgruntled political elements who think and act otherwise.
We shall return to this subject when the Supreme Court is done with the Minority’s relief. Will they take the learned persons to the cleaners or shower plaudits on them? Tempora mutantur or time will tell as the Romans of yore used to say.