Former President John Dramani Mahama, has reiterated his call on Ghanaian judges to deliver justice impartially to the people.
The former President, also said that the Electoral Commission (EC) owes it a sacred duty of care to the people by ensuring they are, included in the electoral process and not excluded in the interest of the incumbent administration.
He further asked the Ghanaian media to report facts without bias, and also to hold the government of the day accountable.
In series of tweets, Mr Mahama said “A judiciary owes it a duty to deliver impartial justice to the people; an Ombudsman owes a duty of care to the people to investigate all issues of malfeasance; a police force should exist to serve the people and not rein terror on them; an electoral commission owes …
“… a sacred duty of care to the people by ensuring they are included in the electoral process & not excluded in the interest of the incumbent admin; an independent media owes it to the people to not only report facts without bias, but to hold the govt of the day accountable.”
Earlier, Mr Mahama indicated that the brand image of Ghana’s judiciary especially the Supreme Court, has been badly damaged.
In his view, the judiciary is lately subjected to public mockery because the people no longer feel they can get justice.
Mr Mahama, whose election petition was unanimously dismissed by the highest court of the land after the 2020 general elections intimated that the time has come for the judiciary to undergo self-cleansing but, he added, the current Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah cannot lead that process.
He said these while opening the 2nd Annual Lawyers Conference of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday August 28.
“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.”
