{"id":465574,"date":"2018-02-19T14:21:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T14:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/19\/judges-fire-atuguba-over-bogus-report\/"},"modified":"2018-02-19T14:21:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T14:21:31","slug":"judges-fire-atuguba-over-bogus-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/19\/judges-fire-atuguba-over-bogus-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Judges fire Atuguba over \u2018bogus\u2019 report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Monday, 19 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>dailyguideafrica.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-19<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/17085188.295.jpg\" alt=\"Ray Atuguba Sophia Akuffo 3\" title=\"Ray Atuguba Sophia Akuffo 3\" width=\"295\" height=\"193\" \/><span class=\"play-icon\">play video<\/span><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Raymond Atuguba was slammed by CJ Sophia Akuffo over his findings on justices in Ghana<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125817929577\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125817929577\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519050091_455_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">A said controversial research finding released by former Executive Secretary of ex-President John Mahama has riled top judges in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Prof. Raymond Atuguba of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, released the findings last week which indicate that Ghana\u2019s Supreme Court judges decide political cases taking into consideration the governments that appointed them.<\/p>\n<p>The judges, led by Chief Justice Sophia A.B. Akuffo, are however, not taking kindly to the outcome of the research by Prof. Atuguba \u2013 who is a nephew of Supreme Court judge William Atuguba \u2013 and have expressed their disapproval in the strongest terms.<\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>Controversial Findings<\/p>\n<p>Prof Atuguba, who traced the voting patterns of Supreme Court judges from 1993 to 2018, said he analysed 100 political cases settled by the highest court, saying it revealed that on matters \u201cwhere the law is not clear the judges were divided along the ideologies of the political parties that appointed them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to him, 14 out of 22 National Democratic Congress (NDC) appointees to the Supreme Court had given judgment in favour of the NDC whilst 13 of the 16 judges appointed by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) gave judgements in favour of the party.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_m0lMMokf0g\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>Judges Wild<\/p>\n<p>Leading the charge, the Chief Justice said Prof. Atuguba\u2019s work is alien to Ghana and appears to fault the premise for the whole research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is an American type of research that you have done\u2026that\u2019s fine, but please be careful what you are importing into our environment,\u201d she cautioned, adding, \u201cThey (Americans) are used to that, we are not. I don\u2019t think there was a single judge who agreed with what you were saying.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder the Constitution, a judge will be appointed during somebody\u2019s time\u2026and that somebody will belong to one party or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Chief Justice confronted Prof. Atuguba during his presentation of the findings at the 2018 GIMPA Law Conference where some superior court judges were in attendance last Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>She insisted that matters are decided by the top judges in line with the law and said they are supposed to be \u2018sound and factual.<\/p>\n<p>The CJ cautioned the law lecturer not to introduce \u2018alien practices\u2019 into the Ghanaian setting.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/gAh3WCk7-GtVgZhNx.html\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>Insulting Findings<\/p>\n<p>A Supreme Court judge, Justice Jones Victor Dotse, who was present at the presentation of the research findings, did not hide his disappointment when he said the entire research is an affront to the judges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are entitled to your views,\u201d he told Prof. Atugaba, adding, \u201cI think it is an insult of the highest order.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice Irene Charity Larbie of the Court of Appeal said Prof. Atuguba\u2019s research is a direct attack on the integrity of justices of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>Atuguba Counter-Attack<\/p>\n<p>However, Prof. Atuguba was adamant, saying he was not the least surprised that there was negative reaction to his findings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWords are just nothing to me,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cThe first time I did a critical analysis of the police the next morning eight fully armed officers were dispatched by the IGP to arrest me from my office,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat should we do with these analyses? Should we stop doing them, should we have another way of funneling it to the public, what should we do?\u201d he asked rhetorically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will never insult anyone, not to talk of the judges, I am engaged in a critical analysis of our political institutions (and) critical analysis always meets opposition,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not a coincidence that this happened\u2026and it will soon be discovered by the general populace and it may be too late then to gain public trust and respect for the court. The time to act is now,\u201d Prof. Atuguba urged.<\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>Public Opinion<\/p>\n<p>Justice Francis Emile Short, former chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), asked Prof. Atuguba to publish the research findings, saying it would elicit constructive critique from the academia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPublish it\u2026I would like to see it,\u201d he told Joy FM on Friday, claiming, \u201cAcademic research is useful if we can critique the methodology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cIt would be critical to find out how a case was determined as political and how the researcher reached the conclusion that a judge favoured the appointing authority. If the conclusions are valid, then there are lessons to be learned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>Atuguba\u2019s Support<\/p>\n<p>Prof. Stephen Kwaku Asare aka Kwaku Azar, a United States-based Ghanaian law don who has been leading a crusade against certain obnoxious public laws, described the judges\u2019 \u2018negative\u2019 reactions towards the research findings as an attack on academic freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the research by Prof. Atuguba only provided \u2018empirical data\u2019 to confirm \u2018popular perception\u2019 that political appointments of judges have influenced their voting patterns on political cases.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Kh0-e9iT8Lc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Prof Asare said on Joy FM that the findings of Prof. Atuguba did not surprise him, saying, \u201cit is consistent with what people have been saying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the law is not \u201carithmetic where two plus two amounts to four; what Atuguba is saying is hardly controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 48 updated by: 63 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Monday, 19 February 2018 Source: dailyguideafrica.com 2018-02-19 play videoRaymond Atuguba was slammed by CJ Sophia Akuffo over his findings on justices in Ghana A said controversial research finding released by former Executive Secretary of ex-President John Mahama has riled top judges in the country. Prof. Raymond Atuguba of the Faculty of Law, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":465575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}