Criticism is a gift you need – GJA to Supreme Court

The Ghana Journalist Association in response to an order issued by lawyers of the Judicial Service has reaffirmed the necessity of criticism in justice delivery and media freedom.

Legal representatives of the Judiciary Service last week wrote to media houses over what they say are the publications of incendiary, hateful and offensive statements, that are essentially targeted at members of the Service, especially Justices hearing the ongoing presidential election petition.

The lawyers, Sory@Law in the letter to media houses directed that publication of such content should cease and that media houses within an ultimatum delete such publications or risk “appropriate action.”

At a press conference on Monday, March 1, 2021, the GJA said the Judicial Service ought to have avoided any impression or situation that has the tendency to instill fear and promote a culture of silence into which Ghana had been enveloped during the period of autocratic misrule.

According to the association, the Judicial Service just like all other arms of government needs criticism which they described as a gift and thus it will be a miscarriage of justice if the judiciary is denied criticism.

The GJA however noted that such criticism is supposed to be done in a manner that does not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

“To this end, the GJA urges the media community to be calm in their disposition and decorous in their pronouncements so that they will not be led into temptation to scandalize the court with unhinged comments or verbal stones, no matter how provocative the statement of the Judicial Service might be.”

On what the media should make of the order by the Judicial Service lawyers, the GJA said: “far from acting on the basis of any threat or intimidation to immediately pull down from their platforms as requested, the media should rather act in the spirit of the GJA Code of Ethics that says ‘A journalist corrects inaccuracies and mistakes at the earliest opportunity and offers a chance for a rejoinder and/or an apology as appropriate.”

Read GJA's statement below: