Former President John Mahama has pointed out that Ghana’s Judiciary is now a political masquerade.
Addressing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters at Bentley University in the US over the weekend, Mr. Mahama said the NDC has a problem with the Judiciary in its current Orwellian state and that it is because of its politicization that the Judiciary has been making “funny decisions.”
The Judiciary, he said, needs reforms.
“We do have problems with the Judiciary, I must say. I think that it is necessary for some internal reforms to take place there. It is necessary for the Chief Justice or whoever is responsible to make some reforms. Most of the governance institutions have been politicised. I give the example of the Judiciary. It is only in Ghana that a Supreme Court will make a decision that a birth certificate is not proof of citizenship,” he said.
The former President has in the past promised to institute reforms to cleanse the Judiciary, which under Chief Justice Anin Yeboah, has carved perception for itself as an extension of the ruling NPP. In all major political cases, the judges rule in favor of the NPP government.
And they tend to do it with a certain choreographed unanimity that gives the impression of a systematic conspiracy within the Judiciary.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin recently had cause to lament about the almost robotic unanimity in the judgments of Ghana’s Judges under Akufo-Addo and his NPP government.
That was after the Supreme Court had given a judgment that saw the apex court vandalize a time-honoured precedent which in turn vandalizes the principle of separation of powers and allows the Judiciary to determine how Parliament runs its business.