99.99% of judges are there to simply do their work – Ex-CJ Sophia Akuffo

Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo has vouched for the professional integrity of all members of the bench, in the wake of discussions around the alleged partisan nature of appointments to the bench.

Whiles admitting that the perception of partisan judges has for long been around, she explained that it will not go away insofar as it was the job of a politician to make the appointments especially in the case of the top courts.

“It’s been going on in this country for the longest time, when I was appointed by president Rawlings, I became an NDC judge. When I make a decision against the NDC, I became an NPP judge and so on and so forth.

“And these are some of the unnecessary pressures that are put on the judiciary, not by anybody saying go this way or that way, but public perception, sometimes it gets to you,” she told Accra-based Asaase Radio in an interview.

Asked whether she was ever affected by such labelling during her time on the bench, she replied:

“For me, very little gets to me, except to do the work that I have to do and I must say up till now, I still believe that 99.99% of the judiciary from magistrates all the way to the Chief Justice, they are there to simply do their work.

“The proven facts, the law and then you analyze, you can go wrong in the analysis that is why there are appeal processes,” she added before stressing that the judicial service needed to work on process and integrity as core values.

In the case of the comments by the former president, she stated that John Dramani Mahama during his time as president had also made appointments across the bench before asking rhetorically whether these appointments were politically influenced.

“He has been through the process of appointing other people before, so, was it because they were NDC?” she quizzed.

Akuffo, who served as Ghana’s second female CJ said the labelling was upsetting because of its potential impacts and that it was even more worrying when people who have no known political allegiances are tagged.

“It always upsets me when you get comments like this one is NPP judge, this one is NDC judge and yet, you have never seen the person on any party’s rally, platform. What difference will that tag make to me, my career and my work. I am already there. You think I am NDC, at the end of the day, so what?” she quizzed.

What Mahama said:

“You can see what the current president has done, he has appointed the biggest number of judges onto the bench, it is more than 80 towards 100 and counting," he noted in a virtual address to the 3rd Annual Lawyers Conference of the NDC on Saturday, September 2.

“He has packed the court and we know they have packed the court because they want to avoid accountability after they have left office. We must be prepared as NDC legal persons to also go onto the bench so that we can balance out the judiciary.

“Currently, the judiciary is packed with NPP-inclined judges because this government has carried out a deliberate policy of putting their people on to the bench.

“So, I encourage some of you to look at careers on the bench so that we can balance out what the current situation is,” he added.

The issue of appointments onto the bench has been topical under this government with allegations that politically exposed people have been appointed by the president.