Justice, Our Justice

Charles E. Wyzanski Jr, has this to say about trial Judges among others thus: 'He may innovate procedures promoting fairness, simplification, economy, and expedition. By instructions to juries and, in appropriate cases, by comments on the evidence, he may help the jurors better understand their civic function. He is a teacher of parties, witnesses, petitioners for naturalization, and even casual visitors to his court. His conduct of a trial may fashion the moral principles of the community. More even than the rules of constitutional, statutory, and common law he applies, his character and personal distinction, open to daily inspection in his courtroom, constitute the guarantees of due process.'

Justice emanates from the people and shall be administered in the name of the Republic by the Judiciary which shall be independent and subject only to the Constitution, so says Article 125 of the 1992 Constitution. But the Judiciary also says that the law resides in the bosom of the Judge, within this context, some judges give no thought to the practical problems a decision would create, who act on the basis of 'let justice be done, though the heavens fall'. It is said that 'most judges would be reluctant to arrive at a holding that they thought might yield catastrophic results. In this wise, Charles A. Johnson and Bradley C. Canon believe that 'a normal factor in the decision-making calculus is a weighing of the possible or likely outcomes of alternative rulings.' They continue by saying that 'in the Supreme Court, one can see concern with consequences at every stage of decision making.'

These obviously strengthens the saying above that the law resides in the bosom of the judge, the social consequences of a decision may influence the decision-making of a judge no matter how unpalatable those decisions may be to other parties. This may account for the decision of the Supreme Court of Ghana on the 29^th of August 2013 in the Election Petition brought before it by Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia and Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo. In spite of unverifiable rumours and suspicions of monies having changed hands for the Justices to even ignore the compulsion in the 'shall' word, I am inclined to believe that the Supreme Court considered the social and perhaps political consequences as well.

When decisions of the court, no matter how unpalatable to other parties, are based primarily on law and considerations of the general social consequences, the society in general and the individual affected parties may understand, their pains notwithstanding. However, when decisions of the courts are based on monetary and other material inducements, then justice would have fled to a brutish beast and men and in our case women, would have lost their reasoning.

 In our part of the world where powers at all levels are capriciously and whimsically exercised, the only source of protection for the poor is the court. Today, it has come to be shown that the poor has no protection from the court any more. The rich and the powerful can buy the law and the poor and the afflicted, will never see justice. There is no sincerity in the administration of justice in Ghana. There is judicial 'galamsey' and it does not matter where some Judges are mining, on the cocoa farms, in the forest reserves and on the planes so long as they get the gold they are looking for, they have served justice.

The recent exposure of high profile corruption within the judiciary, the sale of justice through price haggling in the homes and offices of Judges is ample evidence that justice is being sold to the highest bidder today in Ghana, thus denying the poor their freedoms, rights and liberties in our society. If there is any threat to the safety and security of this nation called Ghana, it is the administration of injustice with unbridled sincerity in the judiciary. How long this has been, we cannot tell but that there is a perception of corruption in the judiciary, perhaps, in the case of Ghana, is as old as the country called Ghana itself.

There were times one could perceive corruption in the judiciary as emanating from political interference and intimidation or rewards. That three High Court Judges were kidnapped and brutally murdered in cold blood, was meant to intimidate the Bench, that in times past Judges were arbitrarily removed by politicians when decisions did not go the way of the governments, were interferences in the administration of justice, and in some instances, cronies were promoted or appointed to the Superior Courts only on the basis of the fact that they were educated as lawyers and meet the basic requirements of being on the Bench and not on the basis of experience or the person ' being of high moral character and with proven integrity'.

 Today, the real corruption of some judges is monetary and material, some of them so mundane that they can influence even a messenger in the office of that Judge. The monetary and material inducements go to increase the lifestyle of a judge who so decides to stoop that low, yes, he or she may decide to sell an image for a pittance, but the party who is sacrificed for the consumption of a few tubers of yam and a guinea fowl, loses so much. How on earth should an armed robber on trial be set free for just a few thousands of Ghana cedis whose value perhaps can be equated to the value of the judge himself or herself?

The judge by that act, encourages the armed robber to continue to unleash murder on innocent hardworking members of our society just because the judge wants to live like a King now and after his or her service. Many innocent people are losing their property, houses, lands to rogues and criminals just because the judges sitting on their cases have put the laws in their bosom and decide to sell justice to the highest bidder no matter the effects on those who need justice but have no money or goats to offer the judges.

Litigants who believe have or are supposed to have the law on their side but cannot pay to some judges are offered a raw deal, they go home and either die off or attract such painful ailments as stroke. Meanwhile the judge is enjoying nothing so big than a khebab made from a goat (dead or alive) or a 'pepper soup from a corrupt goat which is used as a tool for corruption. Is that how low this country has sunk, when there is not a dearth of worthier objects of affection to attract a judge, even when he wants to be corrupt?

Human beings with power have the tendencies to bully weaker fellow human beings, governments with all the coercive powers available to them, are wont to use those powers to suppress their citizenry, employers have the tendency to enslave their employees with glee, but the institution the world over, with the power and authority to protect the poor, the rich, the affluent with influence and even governments from other powers, from being suffocated with distress of varying degrees, is the judiciary.  If that institution decides to negotiate and sell justice just as any commodity is priced on the open market, the rights, liberties and freedoms of the citizenry are wiped off just as a teacher wipes off the previous day's lessons on the black board.

This country is already in distress both socially and economically, the hope and what keeps us alive is our faith in the judiciary, as the remaining arm of government to give us protection, and if that is also compromised at the blind side of our daily lives, then the safety and security of the people of this country, particularly the poor and the weak, are as good as they never existing. Ghanaians will never give up easily on their fundamental human rights just because those who are supposed to protect them are selling them. We will fight to retain them and in the process, both those who sold them and those who bought them will lose what they sold and bought. Very sad times. Three tots of mahogany bitters.

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