FTC Ruling: Views from the dissenters

THE MINORITY regretted the position taken by the majority on the Fast Track Courts which aborted the FTCs and retained the slow judicial practices in existence.

By the majority's decision it had sounded the death knell of the attempt to mechanise the courts, a negative step which would affect nearly everybody, Justice Sophia Akuffo said.

And "therein lies the injustice in the verdict in this case".

Mr. Justice George Acquah who most eloquently expoused the position of the minority buttressed the folly in the abolition of the FTCs by arguing that the mechanised courts were rooted in the Constitution.

He stated that the Constitution empowered the Chief Justice (CJ) to create divisions of the higher courts, debunking the plaintiffs' argument that the exercise is the prerogative of Parliament.

Justice Acquah, in fact, convinced the court that Parliament's legal authority to create courts go only as far as to lower courts and tribunals, with the creation of higher courts reserved to the Chief Justice.

Exuding confidence and authority, he quoted extensively from the Constitution and Acts which empower the CJ to establish courts directly, indirectly, through written or unwritten orders.

He stressed that the CJ has a lot of discretionary powers in this direction and the use of which gave birth to the FTCs.

He again argued that his learned colleagues should not have thrown out the FTCs because the plaintiff's argument that since the inception of the 1992 Constitution, no courts have been added to the existing ones is dishonest and untenable.

"It is common knowledge that there have been created several high courts in the regions and even such towns as Nkawkaw, Goaso, Denu and Mampong under this Constitution by Mr. Phillip Archer, then Chief Justice".

As he explained, the letter of the Constitution would suggest that only one Supreme Court, one each of Appeal Court and High Court are permissible.

"If plaintiff would admit that all these are additional courts created by the CJ, then why the fuss about the FTCs?", he asked.

Again, he contended that the verdict ought to have gone in favour of the defendants because the plaintiff's argument that it is a Court Act that establishes new courts was untenable.

To him, constitutional provisions superior to the Court Act conferred on the CJ the authority to create divisions of the higher courts.

To the argument that the continuing mechanisation of the high courts would have at the end of the exercise, created two names:

Fast Track High Court and High Courts, even though both would have been mechanised, he had a convincing answer. "When all the High Courts are put on Fast Track, there would cease to be divisions of the High Court."