Political scientist, Prof Ransford Gyampo, has expressed his reservation about the absence of a stipulated number when it comes to the appointment of Supreme Court justices in the country.
According to him, President Akufo Addo’s nomination of three more justices to go serve on the Supreme Court, brings the numbers to 15. With this, he revealed that although it is true that three justices have retired and the idea, therefore, is to replace them, he questioned the number of justices the Supreme Court must have.
“We must think about the absence of a ceiling on the number of justices that can be appointed to serve on the apex court of the land. In the US, there are 9 justices of the Supreme Court who sit to bring finality to matters. But in Ghana, there is no ceiling, and this is being exploited by very self-seeking, self-serving, self-aggrandizing and self-perpetuating political cabals.”
Prof Ransford Gyampo
Justifying his stance, Prof Gyampo stated that the first ever research document that called for the review of Ghana’s 1992 constitution, the Democracy Consolidation Strategy Paper (DCSP), prepared by the IEA-Ghana Political Parties Progaramme and published in 2008, inter alia, identified the lack of ceiling on the number of justices that can be appointed to the Supreme Court, as one of the key challenges hindering the maturation of Ghana’s democratization process.
He indicated that the paper therefore called for a ceiling to ensure that the “apex court doesn’t one day, get packed with party foot soldiers, by a daring myopic partisan President who may seek to pervert justice”.
“The Constitutional Review Commission accepted this recommendation after it had been subjected to a nationwide public consultation, and proposed that, article 128(1) of the 1992 Constitution be amended to set a ceiling or provide for a maximum of justices of the Supreme Court.”
Prof Ransford Gyampo
Constitutional review exercise
Furthermore, Prof Gyampo questioned the state of the country’s Constitutional Review exercise that government spent huge sums of money on. On the matter, he explained that government has just yielded to the “plague of policy discontinuity”, just because the process, though highly consultative, was initiated by a predecessor government.
“We were all worried when President Mahama indicated his desire to balance out the courts, but the reality is that, given the absence of ceiling on the number of justices that can be appointed to the Supreme Court, it wouldn’t be illegal if any future President decides to appoint twenty more justices to the Supreme Court to also have a firm grip of the judiciary. Is this the way we want to go as a nation?”
Prof Ransford Gyampo
Moreover, Prof Gyampo emphasized that government should by all means be charged with causing financial loss to the state by truncating the Constitutional Review process.
Additionally, he noted that relevant stakeholders and Ghanaians at large must demand that the next administration that takes over from the current one handle this matter with all seriousness.
“The disregard for Chapter Six of our 1992 Constitution by unpatriotic and nation wrecking politicians in Ghana is becoming too much and someone must pay to atone for the long period of this, one day!”
Prof Ransford Gyampo
Meanwhile, Minority in Parliament has accused President Akufo-Addo of taking advantage of the constitution to pad the Supreme Court.
Reacting to the nomination of the three Supreme Court justices, South Dayi legislator, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, expressed dismay about the appointment since there are no vacancies at the Supreme Court to be filled.
He highlighted that the increase is not needed since the court on average is empaneled by five or seven Judges.
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