Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu has affirmed that the Ghanaian taxpayer has every right to question, in appropriate manner, decisions and conduct of the judiciary if they find justification to do so. She said it is the duty of every judge to be impartial and independent, the lack of which feeds into perceptions that the judiciary is corrupt. She was responding on Radio Gold Thursday, to the question of whether there is a feeling in government that it must win all its cases brought before the courts. A former Supreme Court Judge, Prof. Kojo Kludze had on Wednesday, September 22, expressed worry about what he said was the undue but increasing pressure on the judiciary by successive governments and their functionaries to think that they ought to win every case and that the judiciary must pander to them. But Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, expressing what she said were her personal beliefs rather than a feeling in government, said “It is the role of the Judge to be impartial, to be independent, and it is that independence, it is that quality of independence that we are looking for in all of the Ghanaian judiciary. That is the problem. If you go to the court and at the end of the day you cannot find justice because justice is corrupted through one means or the other; even with the perception of corruption - perception that a judge may be biased or the other side may have influenced him - that is enough to destroy the quality of justice.” She said it is for that reason that countless research works year after year, have put the judiciary in the top three institutions perceived to be most corrupt in Ghana. She however assured that attempts are ongoing, including the setting of committees by the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Justice Georgina Wood and others, to instill discipline in the judiciary and to hold judges accountable. “I have said it once and I will say it again, judges are not above the law. Judges are being paid by the Ghanaian taxpayer. The Ghanaian taxpayer if they believe that the judges are not serving them adequately, have every right to question, in an appropriate manner what is going on and to call on the Chief Justice to remedy what they have found…” Story by Isaac Yeboah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana