Respected legal practitioner Professor Raymond Atuguba has said judges at the Supreme Court decide political cases according to their political leanings.
According to him, it is pretentious for people to assume that judges do not have political ideologies that may influence them at crucial moments.
“In the Supreme Court, you have to make a balance according to the three political traditions – UP, CPP, NDC – because no matter how much we pretend, in difficult cases with a political twist, a judge cannot, but go deep into the intersis of his heart to seek guidance and once he or she arrives there, you find that you are going towards your political leaning,” the former executive secretary to former President John Mahama told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Tuesday.
He further stressed: “I have just started a research project where I have selected about 100 hundred cases which I call political cases and I’m looking at the judges who sat on it at the Supreme Court, and I’m looking at who appointed them and the pattern is clear, in difficult political cases judges decide according to their political leanings. And this is not just in Ghana, it happens in the US too just that in Ghana we pretend that it doesn’t happen which doesn’t help us. We must acknowledge that deep down in their hearts judges are political. And that is why I respect Justice Dartey-Baah who in a public lecture stated publicly that ‘me I’m UP’. So the solution is not to say it doesn’t happen, the solution is you have three political traditions in the country, parliament must not approve a nomination to the Supreme Court which does not balance the numbers in the court”.
Reacting to the suggestion however, Justice Kyei Baffour who was also a guest on the Morning Starr said even though there is no doubt that “ from time to time you have the smoke of politics entering the court” it may be unhealthy to appoint judges based on their political persuasions in the country.
Source: Ghana/StarrFMonline.com/103.5FM
