Democracies have concealed the true nature of judging. This they have done in two ways: either by erecting legal roadblocks to the metaphysical nature of adjudication by presuming all judicial conduct to be inaccessibly blameless, or by granting judges the power to punish any mind attempting to grasp the noumena of judicial behaviour in order to comprehend its true nature.

The metaphysical inaccessibility of the true ontology of judicial behaviour has left behind a decay: a growing culture of judicial irresponsibility.

This decay results from the lack of democratic accountability for judges’ responsibility in the failures of a nation, the corruption of a society, the causal factor behind social anarchy, or, in grave cases, the cause of pain/harm and death, which has reached its apogee or is reaching it. This realisation compels this short piece, a prophetic revelation that seeks to occasion an epistemic realisation for a seismic behavioural revolution among the audience.

In this short piece, I seek to do two things. I seek to excite the mind of the reader to the metaphysic of judicial behaviour, which is ordinarily concealed from public discourse or the critical public lens. Secondly, I seek to put this metaphysic of judicial behaviour before the altar of moral judgment, inviting the reader not only to strive to break the metaphysical walls erected along the path to accessing the ontic of judicial behaviour but also to be critical of them.

By being critical, I mean recognising its violent and unethical nature. The two parts of this short piece do this in a sequential manner.

Part A: The Noumenon of Judicial Behaviour
In Kantian metaphysics, reality is divided between phenomena and noumena. The former is what is within the boundaries of sensual experience, and the latter is without. I make the conceptual claim that this Kantian metaphysical lens offers analogical insight, albeit not strictly into the inaccessibility of judicial behaviour.
In public discourse, very often, blameworthiness is shared among political actors, from the police to the civil servant, to the parliamentarian, and to the president. The behaviour of these aforementioned political actors, I suggest, belongs to the sphere of phenomena. Being within this sphere, the citizen easily subjects it to scrutiny through moral and practical lenses. Clearly, due to its perceptual accessibility.
The reader who recalls any sedimentary knowledge of his civic education will realise that the political actors mentioned belong to two traditional arms of government: the executive and the legislature.
Evidently, one other arm of government is left out.

This is the institution of the judiciary. The actions of judges, although bearing a significant effect on social life, are often omitted from the universe of public condemnation.

In a few cases, as exceptions, the condemnation is directed at the outcomes of cases with direct political
consequences, which are inflamed by partisanship.

In Ghana, the term “Anonymous FC” has been coined to refer to cases in which the public expresses discontent with the outcomes.

Excluding these notoriously “political cases”, a significant majority of judicial behaviour, as reflected in judicial decisions, is spared public scrutiny or condemnation.
This apathy results from what I term the Noumenon of Judicial Behaviour.

The Noumenon of Judicial Behaviour, which describes the inaccessibility of judicial behaviour, results from two causative factors: epistemic inaccessibility and the metaphysic of inaccessibility.

Epistemic Inaccessibility of Judicial Behaviour

By Epistemic inaccessibility, I mean the lack of awareness of judicial behavior due to a shortage of the epistemic stock of judicial behaviour or through hermeneutical gaps in the interpretive capacities of the audience who are to make meaning of this epistemic stock.

It should be known to the Ghanaian today that gaining access to judicial opinions is tiring. The state has failed to create an accessible online portal for ordinary citizens to access court decisions as and when they are made. In cases where stakeholders in the judicial process do take steps to obtain physical copies, it comes at a physical effort, which may not itself be rewarding, as it could take so many visits to the registry of a court in order to obtain a copy.

Whatever the institutional defects may be, there is a notorious reality: judicial opinions of our courts are not publicly accessible on any virtual platforms. The private enterprises that have made it available impose a high cost on the ordinary person for their accessibility. Inevitably, the political economy created around these judicial decisions demotivates accessibility. This kind of lack of access is what I mean by the shortage of epistemic stock of judicial behaviour.

By not having access to judicial opinions, citizens remain ignorant of judicial behaviour, or to state it more sadly, are unaware of the existence of the true nature of judicial behaviour.

The other half of the epistemic issue, the hermeneutical gaps, originates from the incapacity of the audience to make meaning of judicial opinions, even when accessed (If by this we assume that the noumena is accidentally accessible).

Either that the text of judicial opinions is written in esoteric language or that they are poorly written
in a way that the legally untrained is unable to discern the meaning they seek to convey.

So even for the few judicial opinions that are available notwithstanding the shortage of the epistemic stock, they may be meaningless in providing information on judicial behaviour. So again, we are back to the same point.

The inaccessibility of the true nature of judicial behaviour. Either it is not accessible, or if made accessible, it is not comprehensible.

The distinction makes no difference. In both cases, the true nature of judicial behaviour, like Kantian reality, is unknown.
This bifurcated regime of epistemic inaccessibility creates an evident problem: a lack of knowledge among citizens about what judges actually do when deciding cases, or what they claim to do through their statements in those cases.

Metaphysical Inaccessibility of Judicial Behaviour

Moving to the metaphysical side, the issue becomes a bit more complicated. The fact of metaphysical inaccessibility arises partly from the legal framing of the institution of adjudication. There is a metaphysical roadblock to questioning judicial behaviour, secured by the idea of legal immunity to judicial conduct.
Article 127(3) of the 1992 Constitution is such an example. It provides that: “A Justice of a Superior Court, or any person exercising judicial power, shall not be liable to any action or suit for any act or omission by him in the exercise of the judicial power.”

By rendering judicial behaviour legally blameless, the legal framing creates a psychological situation in which the citizen doesn’t seek to access and assess judicial behaviour, because doing so is legally valueless. If one cannot hold a behaviour accountable, attempting to evaluate its propriety or to comprehend its true nature becomes useless, for such awareness may yield no further productive gain.
This legal framing of the enterprise of adjudication has created an unconscious behaviour among citizens to suspend incisive cognitive lenses into judicial behaviour.

This cognitive non-profligacy has created a bulwark between the public and the institution of judicial behaviour, a viscosity to thinking that is impenetrable because it is never attempted to be penetrated.

The second half of metaphysical inaccessibility in judicial behaviour stems from what I call the perception of impersonalization.

The perception of impersonalization is a propaganda tool that has cushioned the judicial process from blameworthiness. What do I mean? By rendering judicial behaviour impersonal, it is treated as value-antiseptic and deemed an amoral fact of making meaning of laws and applying them, devoid of any personal interest. desire or preferential contamination.

One commonly held belief associated with the perception of impersonalisation is that when judges decide cases, they are only discovering law already made by the legislature; thus, the outcome of
judicial decisions are not the deeds of judges but only a reiteration of legislative
demands.
This belief, once believed, seems to cushion judicial behaviour from blame because it is deemed dependent on another behaviour, legislative behaviour, and cannot itself have a metaphysical standing as a thing to be criticised.

Upon scrutiny, one may realise this to be sophistry, designed to render judicial behaviour inaccessible by hiding it behind, or mixing it with, legislative behaviour.
Judging itself is a practical activity. And judges judge wrongly or rightly.

The outcomes of judicial decisions, although presented as discoveries of law, may not always be so.

Thus, the realist judge, who ventures into the realm of extra-legality in sourcing laws, or even the positivistic judge, who misapplies, or fails to apply a law properly in reaching a judicial outcome, bears the responsibility of such an outcome.

In such cases, there is a gulf of metaphysical existence between legislative demands
and judicial actions.

Part B: The Violence of Judicial Behaviour
Adjudicating is violent. It causes pain, harm, and death. When judges make decisions, they destroy property, suspend freedoms, eliminate hope, harm, cause pain, or even kill.

The opposite is possible, but this does not negate the actuality of its negation.

In criminal sentencing, especially, the violent nature of adjudication is revealed. A judge who sentences a person to death is killing. The judge, although not the executioner, is the commander of the execution. And if his command is done justly or unjustly, the end product is a command to kill.

This is what I mean by the violent nature of adjudication.
If we remove the spectacle of epistemic and metaphysical inaccessibility, we will see
the judicial process for what it is: a violent enterprise.

It does violence. That is its nature. Whether it does violence justly or unjustly is a separate issue. Acknowledging that issue implies accepting the actuality of its violence.

For a thing to be bad or good, it must first exist as a thing. For a violent act to be justified or unjustified, it must
first exist in a state of violence.
When a court makes an order of divorce, it does violence to the protesting spouse. It causes him emotional pain and trauma. Whether the law compels the divorce or not is another thing. But by ordering a divorce, the judge does violence emotionally. This is the actuality.

When a judge entertains a bail application and orders the Defendant (Accused Person) to be remanded, the judge does violence. By his order, he restricts freedom.

Denial of liberty is violent. Not only that, compelling the detention of another in a dark, hot, unhygienic room denoted as a police cell is violent.

Whether or not the judge is justified in making the order is quite another thing from the fact that the
order is made.

By issuing the order, the judge sets in motion the state’s violent nature against the Defendant.

When the fifty-three #SayNoToGalamsey protesters were detained for more than two weeks after they were denied bail by the Circuit Court Judge, that was violence. By deciding to exercise discretion in a manner that restricts the liberty of citizens, whether rightly or wrongly, the judge was violent.

The violent effect of the order was felt nationwide. Families of the protesters were emotionally disturbed, loved ones were separated, partners were denied the affection of their spouses, and in some cases, mothers were separated from their young children.

This is violence.

By understanding and appreciating the violent nature of adjudication, one realises the inherent sadistic nature of the work of judges: they cause pain.

When a person is remanded into police custody, we often blame the police or the government for being
insensitive.

In the case of the 53 protesters, the Nana Addo-NPP government faced countless attacks.

We seem to naturally associate violence with legislative and executive action, but not judicial action.

But the reality is that the judge who made the order is even more responsible for the violence suffered by the protesters and the public than the government or the police is. The engine of state violence through
detention was the judge.

The police were merely acting on orders within a hierarchical organisational system, which they are not expected to denounce.

Conclusion
I offer no real conclusion to the issue. Only that, by sharing this insight into the rather inaccessible, the oracle that I pretend to be, reveals the pretentious nature of adjudication to the audience, or at least awakens them to pursuing their own independent inquiry to the issue.