Ghana Judicial system has come under attack from the populace especially from opposition parties over what they deem as waning image of the State Institution.
The recent attack emanates from the quarters of the Former President John Dramani Mahama as he has berated the Judiciary once again.
The Former President in an address at the opening of the 2nd Annual Lawyers Conference of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday August 28 said the image of the country’s judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has been badly damaged.
The two-day event is on the theme: ‘The [email protected]: The Past, the Present, the Future, the Role of the NDC’.
The Former President in his speech shared concerns over the image of the Judiciary saying it has become a public ridicule.
“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.
Commenting how dangerous that poses to Ghana’s growing democracy, the former President said
“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
The Former President urged Judiciary to work hard to win the public trust of the citizenry to repair the broken image of the state Institution.
John Dramani Mahama was however not enthused on the current Chief Justice for his role in the loss of perceived public trust in the Judiciary.
“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.”
Source: theGhanaianvoice.com
