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John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress, has stressed the significance of selecting impartial individuals for Ghana’s Supreme Court.
During a media event on July 7, Mahama emphasized the importance of choosing candidates for appointment based on their fairness and impartiality, rather than their political affiliation with the NDC, in response to a query about appointing only pro-NDC lawyers.
He emphasized the importance of having impartial judges who can ignore their own biases and administer justice fairly.
In reference to the Chief Justice’s suggestion to the president about selecting 5 High Court judges for the Supreme Court, Mahama worried that the correct constitutional procedures for judicial appointments may not have been adhered to.
“I think that the obligation and responsibility of every president is to appoint fair-minded people. Human beings as we are we have our own inclinations towards one party, towards one religion, or towards one culture or another. There are many things that makes us who we are but the obligation when you become a judge is to look at the cold hard facts and rule based on that.
“Some of the pushbacks that we are seeing currently is the penchant by this president to pack the courts. And only recently we’ve seen what happened. I can’t understand why the chief justice will be the one recommending, you know, which judges to appoint.
“The constitution is clear that it’s the president who appoints judges with the advice of the council so the initiative to appoint judges must come from the president and submitted to the judicial council. He brings it back with advice to the president and the president forwards it to parliament, that is the procedure. It is very rare that this time the recommendation comes from the chief justice to the president.
“The president of this country has a lot discretionary powers but that discretionary power must be exercised with responsibility and make sure that when you’re appointing people unto the judiciary which has security of tenure, until they reach 65 or 70 or whatever age is recommended, you cannot remove them unless for state treason. And so appointing people to such powerful positions where they are the arbiter of whatever happens in this country, we must make sure that we use a criteria of fair minded people and put their prejudices aside and be able to judge fairly”, he posited.
NKONKONSA.com
