The trust and confidence Ghanaian’s had in the Judicial Service seem to have hit rocks ever since an exposé by ace investigative journalist Anas Aremyaw Anas brought to light the atrocities and unethical escapades of over 180 Judges and Judicial Staff that took the nation by storm in 2015.
The nearly 500 hours video evidence which negatively put Ghana on the international spotlight preceded a petition to former President John Dramani Mahama and the Chief Justice requesting for the axing of the judges alleged to have been taking bribes and demanding sex.
The tussle between Anas and judicial service witnessed series of resignations and the dismissal of some judges from the Judicial Service for violating provisions of the 1992 Constitution.
Three years down the line, the former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rt. Rev. Professor Emmanuel Martey has waded in on the development describing the judges implicated in the bribery scandal as a gang of thieves.
The professor posited that “whatever that is morally wrong cannot be politically right and whatever that is morally wrong cannot be economically correct” thus a nation that exchanges transparency and rule of law deserves no better description than a jungle of “criminals on a large scale”.
Prof. Martey, who is known for his rather ‘strict’ stance on a lot of issues rebuked leaders of the country for failing to arrest the canker despite their promises to deliver when elected to power.
“In our judicial system, we have witnessed a wave of judicial corruption in this country. Judges are there to promote the rule of law, they are to serve the people with the dispensation of justice more than any other church theologian. What it means to have a state without justice is a gang of thieves, a gang of criminals on a large scale,” he said.
“So if there is a nation that twists justice, that makes the wicked righteous and the just to suffer they are all a gang of thieves on a large scale, gargantuan one,” he stressed.
Prof. Martey was speaking at the Agape House New Testament Church on the topic ‘Address The Mess - “The Mess in Our Nation”.
Ghana drops in 2017 corruption perception Index
Ghana dropped 11 places from the 2016 ranking to place 81 out of 180 countries in the 2017 Corruption Perception index.
Ghana’s mark out of a total of 100 was 40, down from 43, which the country attained in the 2016 index.
In 2015, Ghana improved slightly on 2014’s figure with a rank of 56 out of 168 countries and a score of 47.
The Index put together by Transparency International ranks countries annually by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.
The government has however argued that Ghana’s poor performance in the 2017 Global Corruption Perception Index also took into account corruption cases recorded under the John Mahama administration, which left power in January 2017, a claim the opposition NDC has refuted.
