The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has taken on Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie for comments comparing the performance of some state-owned enterprises under the current government to the past eight years, cautioning that such statements could paint the Judiciary as aligned to the Executive.
The Chief Justice made the comments during working visits to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF), where he lauded their current performance and questioned how the institutions were run in the previous eight years.
Speaking at the opening of the Ghana Bar Association Conference, GBA President Efua Ghartey said the remarks were worrying, noting they risk dragging the Judiciary into partisan politics.
“The recent commendation of a public institution and the comparison to a past government’s output by no mean a person than the Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana left much to be desired,” she stated.
Mrs Ghartey said the incident feeds into a wider concern about subtle and sometimes open pronouncements by some members of the Judiciary that suggest they are in office to advance the cause of another arm of government, especially the Executive.
She stressed that while the Bar is committed to defending judicial independence under the 1992 Constitution, judges must stay within the confines of their constitutional role.
“The Bar wishes to set a reminder that much as it is poised to protect the independence of the judiciary, as per article 1284 of the 1992 constitution of the Republic of Ghana, the guarded must stay within their bounds as dictated by their calling in the constitution,” she said.
Mrs Ghartey also referenced a Supreme Court decision in which Justice Yonny Kulendi noted that occupants of independent constitutional and statutory offices, including judges, are limited in their ability to openly engage in partisan politics.
“We note that chiefs are not alone in having their free speech so restricted. Holders of independent institutional or statutory offices, notably judges, members of the Electoral Commission, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and the National Commission on Civic Education, are by implication from their independent status similarly constrained in their freedom or ability to actively take sides in partisan politics,” she quoted Justice Kulendi as saying.
