Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE four Appeal Court judges who have been nominated by the President for the Supreme Court yesterday suggested that there should be a deliberate effort to educate people to know that they could win or lose their cases without influencing judges and magistrates.
Admitting that corruption within the Judiciary had moved from a perception to reality, they were, however, of the opinion that even though studies had shown corrupt practices within the system, the situation had been blown out of proportion.
The judges, Mr Justice Anin Yeboah, Mr Justice Jones Victor Mawulom Dotse, Ms Justice Rose Constance Owusu and Mr Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, shared their thoughts on the subject when they appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament for vetting.
Buttressing the assertion when he appeared before the committee, Justice Baffoe-Bonnie told the committee that studies had established that on a percentage of 100 corruption cases, 15 per cent could be attributed to judges while the remaining 85 per cent was attributable to other staff of the Judiciary.
He said in the Ashanti Region, where he was a judge, it was found out that in 90 per cent of all cases which went to the Kumasi courts, the litigants expressed the interest of “seeing the judges”.
Mr Justice Baffoe-Bonnie explained that out of that percentage, less than 10 per cent actually succeeded in “seeing the judges”, while the rest ended up going to “all manner of persons such as bailiffs, brothers and girlfriends of judges” to convince them to adjudicate the cases in their favour.
“Even among the lawyers, when they are charging their fees, they will tell their clients that a percentage of the amount is for the judge,” he said.
He said in all these matters, “people should be made aware that bribery does not deliver justice”.
On whether the Constitution should be amended for a ceiling on the number of judges to be appointed, all the four judges stated that since the Constitution was a growing one, attempts should not be made to touch the entrenched clauses.
They added that although the Constitution did not put a ceiling on the number of Supreme Court judges, none of the two presidents under the Fourth Republic had exceeded 14.
They justified their nomination to the Supreme Court and said that if they were given the nod, they would help administer justice at that level since out of the current 12 Supreme court judges, two were due for pension while three were not working because of ill health.
Out of the remaining seven, the Chief Justice was an administrator while one was on an international assignment, leaving only five judges as active ones at the Supreme Court.
One issue which was discussed extensively by all the four judges had to do with the lack of logistics and poor infrastructure of the Judicial Service.
Mr Justice Yeboah told the committee that much of the problems besetting the Judiciary could be solved, if about 50 per cent of the internally generated funds by the service was retained for the construction of more courts and the renovation of the dilapidated ones. Currently, only 15 per cent of the fund is retained by the service.
Mr Justice Baffoe-Bonnie said, for instance, that as an Appeal Court judge with an oversight responsibility over the Brong Ahafo Region, he had toured the region extensively.
He said structures used by the Judiciary in the region depicted “ a sordid tale of neglect of the Judiciary”.
For his part, Mr Justice Dotse advocated the establishment of more courts throughout the country to ensure speedy trial of cases, stressing that courts should be sited in places such as Teshie and Madina in the Accra metropolis.
Ms Justice Owusu stunned members of the committee about her strong conviction of the administration of capital punishment.
To her, there was no need to remove capital punishment from the country’s statute books, since “he who kills needs to die”.
Her conviction about capital punishment was shared by Mr Justice Baffoe-Bonnie but their other two colleagues, however, called for the law to be expunged in line with the current thinking in the international community.
Other subjects which were dealt with during the vetting included the law of causing financial loss to the state and the decoupling of the Attorney-General from the Ministry of Justice.