Parliamentarians, Ministers Are Bunch Of Firecrackers-Judges Brag

-As They Demand More Pay For Themselves

During the consultation stage in the work of the Presidential Emoluments Committee set up by President Akufo-Addo to review the salaries of Article 71 officeholders, the top brass of the Judiciary described parliamentarians and ministers as good-for-nothing.

In the final report of the Prof. Yaa Ntiamoah-Baidu Committee, Judges flaunted themselves as indispensable in the machinery of State while rubbishing the other arms of government – Executive and Judiciary – as not so essential.

They made these disparaging statements in an attempt to justify them being paid fat salaries instead of the other Article 71 Officeholders. 

According to the gloating judges whose opinions were sampled while compiling the report, the State can survive without the Executive and the Legislature, but cannot survive without the Judiciary.

And based on this claim, they demanded that they are not only paid better but that the time-honoured statecraft tradition of making the pay grade of other institutions’ office holders analogous to that of the Judiciary should be stopped.

“We are a judiciary, you cannot do without; you can do without Parliament and ministers but not without the judiciary. They said that in the light of their unique constitutional role and the many restrictions on their personal lives, the emoluments of the superior court justices should not be determined in relation to the Executive or the Legislature,’’ the Prof. Baidu report said. 

It added that according to the Justices, the Judiciary is a profession, while the others are not. “On that basis, the justices urged the Committee to consider decoupling the Judiciary from all other Article 71 Officeholders in terms of emoluments.”

This is not the first time that the Justice Anin Yeboah-led Judiciary has looked down on everyone else from their high horse at the Court complex in Accra. 

It is perhaps this air of self-importance that prompted Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah to recently attempt to drag former Deputy Attorney General and the Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga East to the General Legal Council to be punished for daring to criticise the verdict of the Supreme Court in the contentious Presidential Election Petition this year.

Again, a few weeks ago, the same Judiciary hired lawyers to write a narcissist gag order to the media and public in general, in response to citizens’ unhappiness over the quality of the 2020 election petition adjudication.

Lawyers for the Judiciary had ordered media houses to go into their library of publications, look for all stories that are critical of the Judiciary, and expunge them.

The overzealous lawyers had also told Ghanaians in their public order that the people were unenlightened on Judicial matters and as such judges were going to employ highhanded measures to keep the people from shooting off their mouths about judges.

Chief Justice Anin Yeboah would later claim he knew nothing about that public order from the Judiciary’s lawyers, but most people did not believe his claim.

It is not clear what the basis of the argument that the Judiciary is more important than the Legislature and the Executive lies, but it will come across to many as a logical fallacy as the Judiciary is useless if Parliament does not make laws for it to interpret.

According to the report, “the Justices also called for the disengagement of current analogies where certain positions in the public service, which have been linked directly and made analogous to positions in the superior courts.”

The report also said the judges made more cogent arguments for their conditions of service to be improved. “On salaries, the Judiciary maintained that the Justices of the Superior courts in Ghana are among the least paid justices in Africa and the Commonwealth. Pay comparisons between Ghana and four (4) other countries namely Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and the United Kingdom, showed that Justices in Ghana are the least paid.”

The judges urged the Committee to consider payment of Judicature Allowance to them to compensate them for not being allowed to practice. They also demanded an increase in their book/research allowance as they have no copyright for judgments they pass and are forced to buy copies of their own judgments.

It said, the justices who had prepared a document detailing comparative analyses of their conditions of service with other institutions, pointed out for instance that their workload is huge and growing. For instance, the Supreme Court serves as both a supervising Court and a Constitutional court. In other jurisdictions, the two roles are separate and handled by different courts.

They also said their work is risky both to themselves and their families because of the sentences they hand out to offenders. But they do not have adequate security especially after they retire. 

They added that prohibition to them not to take up private work while on the bench and even when they retire makes it imperative for a special package to be arranged for them.