Emefa Apaw, sincere gratitude for holding the forte last Saturday. I was at the University of Cape Coast as Guest Speaker at the 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Judicial Service Staff Association.

Tune in to my weekly legal clinic, THE LAW, tomorrow 2pm for portions of my speech, that of the Chief Justice and a couple others on the theme “[j]udicial independence and integrity; critical ingredients for peaceful election 2024.”

I had been at the two-day Constitution Review validation workshop convened by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. But I spent this week at the final seminar and graduation for The Africa Leadership Initiative West Africa (Class 6) to become a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

It’s been two years of intense intellectual engagements with extra-ordinary global citizens to better equip oneself for leadership of integrity from success to significance.

I am acutely aware of the expectation that My Take will be about the Democracy Hub protest against galamsey, for a new constitution, and for good-governance. I must keep to my protocol to not focus a take on a subject tabled for discussion on this show. But one particular act of injustice cannot escape me today. I hate injustice.

The demonstrators may have misconducted themselves, whatever the cause. And that’s why they have been put before the court. It is unsurprising that even non-lawyer ordinary citizens have seen the breach of the law by the State, especially in denying them bail. Bail has been used as punishment contrary to the clear dedicates of law and our established jurisprudence.

Some indict the circuit court judges of making a mockery of justice and the judiciary as Ghana attracts international embarrassment over the handling of the protestors upon their arrest.

Judgeship is a godly duty and can be a very difficult job. Dr. Richmond Osei-Hwere, Justice of the High Court, at the 50th anniversary of JUSAG at the weekend reminded us of the famous statement of Charles Evans Hughes in his 1925 Presidential address to the American Bar Association that “[a] poor judge is perhaps, the most wasteful indulgence of the community.

You can refuse to patronise a merchant who does not carry good stock, but you have no recourse if you are hauled before a judge whose mental or moral goods are inferior. An honest, high-minded, able, and fearless judge is the most valuable servant of democracy, for he illuminates justice as he reinterprets and applies the law, as he makes clear the benefits and the shortcomings of the standards of individual and community rights among a free people.”

Let me repeat this caution by the Supreme Court, in AWUNI vs. WAEC that “[a] nation that stands by and looks on while the rights of the individual are slowly pecked at, eventually pays the ultimate price of finding its own rights eroded.”

Read also: GJA calls for release of anti-Galamsey protesters

The exercise of discretion to wholesale deny bail completely fails the mandatory test in Article 296 that discretionary power carries a duty to be fair and candid, it must not be arbitrary, capricious, or biased either by resentment, prejudice, or personal dislike, and that the exercise of discretion must accord with due process of law”.

The protestors face misdemeanour charges, and people are familiar with police granting bail to suspects including politically exposed persons facing felony charges, and over this very existential threat. Elsewhere, the Minister for Justice will, in the very least, condemn this conduct and will never be heard arguing in support of as long as two weeks remand for them. In Kenya, the lawyers’ guild will not only issue a statement, they will be in court to fight the human rights abuse even if they disapprove of the conduct of the protestors.

People have a legitimate expectation that the court will check excesses of the police and Attorney-General, the same way it will punish excesses of the protestors if the charges are eventually proven. I am afraid these judges failed the first test of credibility. This is at a time the Chief Justice is working hard, through the LEADing Justice vision, to change the Afrobarometer verdict of erosion in the trust enjoyed by the judiciary from a high of 65% in 2005 to 36% in 2022. And that, is, My TAKE.

Samson Lardy ANYENINI

September, 2024