Packing the Supreme Court isn't any solution

Folks, it isn't strange to me that Akufo-Addo would add more to the lot constituting Ghana's Supreme Court and expect to be commended for doing what he thinks will eradicate the rot in the justice delivery system in Ghana.

It won't, and he won't be commended at all. If anything at all, he stands condemned for extending the "job-for-the-boys/girls" syndrome to the highest court of the land and for perpetrating political mischief by abusing the “connections” in the judiciary for such a purpose. Two of the judges that he has uplifted recommended the removal of Mrs. Charlotte Osei, which Akufo-Addo unconscionably acquiesced to for political expediency. Is such a character a credit-worthy President to respect? Ofui to the highest degree!!

He has just packed that court for nothing. What has necessitated such an appointment, anyway? What is Akufo-Addo foreseeing for him to put these people in the Supreme Court?

At least, we know those among them with unalloyed support for the NPP and unrepentant hatred for the NDC camp. In all that dirty game of sorts, they stand to lose because they are at the tail-end of their career and are being pushed where they will de-gas and fade out after losing the steam of life and career. Pitiable robots!!

Let’s now take on some of them for pinpointed castigation.

Justice Amegatcher's record in his private practice and at the larger front of the Ghana Bar Association tells us much. So also does that of Justice Marful-Sau. I have no compulsion to go into details. Any curious mind can do so.

The other two appointees also have their own kinds of cobwebs that make a mockery of the upliftment that Akufo-Addo has given them in bizarre circumstances----nothing happening in Ghana now calls for the packing of the courts with such praise-singers who are Akufo-Addo’s allies but can’t find their levels politically (especially when politics in Ghana now is the magnet attracting all kinds of failures in life and professions to find their golden fleece at the expense of the poor tax payer)

Ghana's judiciary isn't productive for many reasons: archaic mode of operation; lack of infrastructure; inadequate remuneration to prevent corruption; political interference; inculcation of disguised political activism into legal practice for plain mischief (Reference:Justice Jones Dotse's mantra of "create, loot, and share" that catalyzed the NOP's dirty politics against the NDC administration); and many more.

And with Akufo-Addo going so “cheap” in appointing such characters, the problem calcifies. How saddening!!

Solving such problems to help the judiciary stand on its feet to contribute its quota toward growing our democracy goes beyond packing the Supreme Court with all these people.

One would by now have expected Akufo-Addo to know better how to rejig and retool the judiciary so it can function properly.

Isn't it disturbing to learn that magistrates and judges are gearing up to lay down their tools just as staff of the judiciary are bent on doing----all because of disregard for their worth?

What does a small country like Ghana need a corpus of 14 or more Supreme Court judges for?

The real challenge is at the lower levels that must be addressed. This appointment is ridiculously irrelevant unless it's been made to help dismiss cases brought up against Akufo-Addo and his lame-duck government.

And indications ate strong that such cases will begin be filed over time.

The suit against Akufo-Addo's dismissal of Mrs. Osei from office and many others have serious political ramifications that stooges placed at the Supreme Court could manipulate to suit the appointing authority's purposes.

In any case, packing the Supreme Court at this time is misplaced. Better measures could be taken to revamp the entire judiciary instead of this marginal approach.

I shall return…
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor