Legal scholar Asare urges Ghana’s chief justice to avoid partisan politics
Ghanaian legal scholar Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare has urged Ghana’s Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie to refrain from public statements that could be perceived as partisan political assessments. MyJoyOnline reports.
Asare was responding to remarks made by Baffoe-Bonnie on September 2 during a visit to the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF). The chief justice praised the work of the fund and other state institutions and said that some of the changes he had seen made him wonder what the country had been doing over the previous eight years.
Baffoe-Bonnie also visited the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), where he said he was impressed by information about the institution’s work. Recalling previous plans to sell SSNIT assets, including the Labadi Beach Hotel, he stated that this raises questions about “how Ghana could have declined so much.”
Political undertones
According to Asare, the reference to the “previous eight years” has a clear partisan meaning in Ghana’s political discourse. In his view, such words by the chief justice may, fairly or unfairly, be perceived as an assessment of one administration compared with another.
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The legal scholar stressed that his concern was not whether Baffoe-Bonnie’s assessment was right or wrong, nor the official’s motives, but the possible consequences of such wording for trust in the independence of the judiciary. He noted that judges do not cease to be citizens after taking office, but must exercise restraint in public statements.
Judicial neutrality
Asare said that the requirement for politicians to respect the independence of the judiciary must be reciprocal: judges, including the chief justice, must also stay out of the partisan political sphere. He warned that courts may hear cases concerning the actions of both the previous and current governments.
Therefore, in the professor’s view, no party to court proceedings should have grounds to doubt whether the head of the judiciary has formed a positive or negative attitude toward a particular administration. Asare concluded that the higher the judicial office, the greater the duty of public restraint.
