Former United Nations (UN) Senior Governance Advisor, Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah has indicated that the Chief Justice’s (CJ) decision to launch her Vision for the Judiciary is a great initiative that will open up the judiciary for public scrutiny like the other arms of government.
He noted that the initiative is a response to recent attacks on the Judiciary which aims at bringing transparency and accountability in the operations of the Judiciary which is good for Ghana’s democracy.
He however noted that the court as a final arbiter in issues of conflict in governance must always stay neutral, emphasizing that the Chief Justice must ensure that the initiative does not overly expose the Judiciary in order to keep its neutrality.
“When it [the Judiciary] becomes so exposed, then of course we are going to have more issues coming up and I don’t think the court should function as the Executive where now and then there is a press conference and you are responding, you are reacting to public sentiment… If this is managed well, certainly, for me it is an excellent innovation”.
Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah
Furthermore, Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah indicated that the Chief Justice may address the media once a year to inform the public about issues of the court and how they are being handled in order not to be overexposed.
He suggested that the Judiciary must institute an effective Public Communications Office to attend to issues of public interest and thereby avoid the risk of overexposing the Justices of the Supreme Court.
“Of course, they can have their private and social lives, that’s not the issue. But in the public domain, there should be some kind of caution that they don’t get themselves overexposed”, Professor Agyeman-Duah stated.
Esq. Savior Kudze, PRO of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) also noted that the initiative is a good one that allows the public to hold the Chief Justice accountable to her visions for the Judiciary, should she deviate from the vision statement in the conduct of her duties.
He however, noted that he does not expect the Chief Justice to make frequent, her address to the public, stating that the Chief Justice may give an update on the operations of the court but not explain what happens in the court.
He argued that offering explanations may expose the dealings of the Judiciary to the public, which is not practical.
Confidence In The Judiciary
Moreover, Esq. Savior Kudze indicated that the initiative will help clear the misconceptions Ghanaians have about the Judiciary due to their misunderstanding of the workings of the Judiciary and also build on the confidence the public has in the Judiciary.
He stated that the initiative would grant the Chief Justice and the Judiciary at large a platform to educate the public about the workings of the Judiciary.
Accordingly, Mr. Affail Monney, Former President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) noted that the Chief Justice’s initiative will bridge the information gap between the Judiciary and the media and also the general public.
“The initiative will bring us on board to get a deeper insight into what the Judiciary does and what informs its actions and inactions. Whatever the Judiciary does can serve as a magnet to attract either positive or negative publicity”.
Mr. Affail Monney
Moreover, Esq. Savior Kudze indicated that he expects the Chief Justice to indicate how she plans to deal with the accumulation of cases that the Judiciary has been saddled with over the years.
He also indicated that he expects the Chief Justice to elaborate how the shift system she introduced is going to work at the court, stating that the shift system is an indication of the court’s readiness to handle backlog cases and also an indication for more judges to be employed.
Conclusively, he noted that the Chief Justice must take steps to decentralize the administration of Justice in the country.
He stated that the High Courts must be made available to people in other areas of the country to make the administration of justice easy as the High Court is the only court that can attend to cases of all calibers.
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