Justice Anin-Yeboah
JUSTICE KWASI Anin-Yeboah,
President Akufo-Addo’s nominee, emerged the overwhelming favourite of the bar
and the bench during yesterday’s vetting in Parliament to succeed the outgone
Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo.
The Chief Justice-nominee was subjected
to intense grilling by the Appointments Committee, as the Minority members on
the committee sought to question his independence on strong feelings that he was
tied to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
However, the nominee opined that
because of his high integrity at the bar and on the bench, he was proposed for
the position by the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) when it was about to become
vacant.
According to him, when the bar
proposed him to the Presidency, he was compelled to apply for the vacant
position since no other member on the bench at the Supreme Court applied, which
made him the unanimous and the most popular choice for the position.
The nominee appears to have high
respect amongst the bar and the bench as many legal luminaries trooped to his
vetting place to witness the proceedings.
The Chief Justice-nominee told the
Appointments Committee that his passion as a Chief Justice would be to make
Ghanaians have easy access to quality and affordable justice.
More Courts
He said he was so passionate about
building courts in every corner of the country so that Ghanaians, irrespective
of where they lived, could easily access justice.
He has, therefore, appealed to all metropolitan,
municipal and district assemblies as well as Members of Parliament to help the
Judiciary in that direction by helping to build courts with good facilities in
their areas of jurisdictions so that the Judicial Service will staff those
courts to dispense justice to Ghanaians.
The Chief Justice-nominee, who was
grilled for about five and a half hours, was expected to be approved by Parliament
by close of yesterday.
He said the Judiciary had recently
recruited some magistrates and circuit judges in an attempt to facilitate easy
access of justice by many Ghanaians.
He called for the retention of 50
per cent of MMDAs internally generated funds so it could be used to pay for the
allowances of judicial staff anytime they threatened to go on strike.
He also appealed to the government
to ensure that judges and judicial staff were well motivated so that justice
delivery would be smooth.
Law School Brouhaha
On legal education in the country,
the Chief Justice-designate, who is also a lecturer at the Ghana School of Law,
admitted that the standards of legal education were falling and, therefore,
there was the need for measures to be put in place to raise the standards and
train internationally recognized lawyers in the country.
He said the standards of students being
churned out from the law faculties of the universities were very horrible and would,
therefore, need further checks and balances for them to be admitted into the
Ghana School of Law.
Minority Concerns
The Minority members on the
committee also wanted to know why in the Supreme Court decision of the 2012
election petition, his ruling in the dissenting minority was for the Electoral
Commission (EC) to completely conduct new presidential elections.
He said that his ruling had been
misconstrued because out of the 26,000 polling stations, 11,000 of them had
election irregularities and once 15,000 polling stations had been authenticated
legally, there was no way his ruling would have prescribed elections in all the
26,000 polling stations.
According to him, from those irregularities,
none of the presidential candidates could have earned 50 per cent plus one vote
to be declared the winner and so he thought that wholesale elections in all the
11,000 affected polling stations were appropriate.
When he was asked whether he had any legal philosophy, he said his legal philosophy was the law and the Constitution of the Republic.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr
