Posted: Daily Guide |dailyguideghana.com
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Chief Justice Georgina Theodora WoodIt is gradually becoming clear that the unnecessary attacks on the country’s judiciary by key and influential members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) are part of a grand design by the government to soften the grounds for the removal of Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood from office.
This became evident when a group of NDC regional chairmen, led by Greater Accra regional chairman Ade Coker, issued a statement in Accra yesterday confirming the fears of several Ghanaians that they have a hidden agenda against the CJ by calling for Kwesi Pratt’s CJA-type public forum to lambast her in order to prepare the grounds for her exit.
The Ashanti regional chairman of the party Yaw Obimpeh had dropped the hint of the plot to remove the Chief Justice, appealing strongly to President John Evans Atta Mills to fire the CJ with immediate effect, else the party’s foot soldiers would stage a series of demonstrations against her.
Mr. Obimpeh alleged that the CJ, under the erstwhile Kufuor administration, ensured that a number of NDC key officials were sent to the courts and eventually convicted whether guilty or not guilty.
The regional chairmen made several allegations against Justice Wood which sought to not only portray her as biased but also a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Though several lawyers and civil society groups including the Magistrates and High Court Judges had all condemned NDC chairman Dr Kwabena Adjei’s comments, the regional chairmen thought otherwise and therefore declared an unflinching support for the comments made by their National Chairman in which he indicated government’s preparedness to clean or purge the judiciary.
Dr. Adjei had warned that if the government cleansed the judiciary nobody should accuse them of interference.
Among the string of allegations the regional chairmen levelled against the Chief Justice was that by her actions and inactions, she had compromised her political neutrality.
They therefore stressed the need for government to “institute a public forum for people to present their accounts of the obvious administrative shortcomings, moral and pecuniary corruption in the justice system and act accordingly on the results of the forum, to give to ourselves and posterity a system of justice which keeps true to the constitutional requirements of the concept of justice originating and sustained by the people”.
The regional chairmen of the NDC believed that such a forum would be a logical sequel to previous reports on corruption and bias in the judiciary.
Since her assumption of office, they noted that Mrs. Georgina Wood had decided to personally perform a task which they said hitherto was the preserve of the registrars of the various courts by assigning highly sensitive cases to her supposed favourites (judges), saying, “In Ghana, our Chief Justice we are told uses a special group perceived to be her favourites in the system to perform this sensitive task which can enable her to predict the outcome of cases in which she has an interest.”
Betty Mould-Iddrisu - A-GThey made reference to the infamous MV Benjamin cocaine committee which Mrs. Wood presided over, insinuating that she was appointed Chief Justice shortly after what they described as ‘inconclusive enquiry’ which eventually led to the acquittal of the principal suspects in the missing cocaine scandal.
This, they said, was because “her role in the missing cocaine trial and subsequent appointment created a perception that it was her reward for doing a favourable job for President Kufour and the drug barons who exercised so much influence in the NPP administration.”
The NDC chairmen said “her own actions have not helped matters, and we will explain.”
Furthermore, they said between the first and second round of voting in the 2008 presidential elections, the Chief Justice came out publicly to apologize to all taxi and trotro drivers who had suffered imprisonment as a result of the amendment of the road offences laws by the NPP government in 2007.
For them, “the obvious reason for this invasion of the party political space by the Chief Justice was to play a role in the faltering campaign of the then ruling NPP, which as you may recall, even included a former Minister of State, kneeling in the sands of Winneba to plead for the votes of fishermen and women in the wake of the pair trawling disaster of that late unlamented government.
“Again, our Chief Justice was at the centre of the court case mounted by the NPP in the dying days of the regime to prevent the Electoral Commissioner from declaring the outcome of the polls, and stopping the ultimate vote in the Tain Constituency,” they noted, emphasizing that she “actually issued a warrant for the high court to sit on a public holiday, the intent being to prevent the will of the people, the very source of her office and authority, from being enforced in the 2008 elections.”
A week earlier, they said the CJ had given the go-ahead for another case against an NDC parliamentary candidate to proceed on Christmas Day 2008.
“It is our submission that notwithstanding the amendments which enabled a speedy dispatch of election cases, she has no authority to permit a court to sit in violation of the Public Holiday Act, when it is clear that the law can only be suspended by the President.”