Our Law Lords have spoken - Chronicle

YESTERDAY, Ghana's Supreme Court ruled that Fast Track Courts have no legal and constitutional basis of existence.

This landmark ruling threw the whole nation into some controversy not because our law Lords erred in law, but because of the far-reaching implications of their ruling.

Five out of the nine judges that constituted the panel gave judgement in favour of Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, who had filed an interlocutory suit before the court on February 11, 2002 challenging the constitutionality of the Fast Track Court in trying him for crimes against the State.

Our Law Lords have spoken, and all we can do is listen and obey them.

Our struggles and yearnings as patriotic sons of Ghana is to get, in the ultimate, all our various arms of government and institutions of governance working and working independently.

Our feelings, our thoughts, convictions and prejudices, for now, are unimportant.

Our cry in the last twenty years has been for a judiciary that will not allow itself to be cowed by the Executive or any other force; a judiciary that will not be enticed by pecuniary or other reward.

Whatever the implications of this ruling, it is the hope of this paper that Ghana will move forward since none in this nation is greater than the law.

This ruling will find some people rejoicing and others sad and disillusioned.

To those of us on the Chronicle, the victory or defeat is not one for any party or group; it is a victory, for our democratic process. In matters of the law, no one has all the answers.

The decision was a very close one but that is the rule or the game and we all have to come to grips with this grim reality.

This country has come a long way since June 1983, when judges were murdered to send fear into their fold just for them to pervert judgement.

Twenty years down the lanes of our democratic struggles, we are realising that we need all our institutions of governance to be strong, healthy and vibrant.

The result, to some of us, is this ruling in favour of a man who has been at receiving end of press attacks and public ridicule. But that is exactly the price to pay for being a public official.

While we all wait for our learned judges to give reasons for the judgement on March 20, 2002, we need to reflect on this landmark ruling and the realities of the systems of governance we have elected to pursue.

Whatever its defects, if there are any at all, it has a supreme benefit - the fact that it would be wellnigh impossible for one person or group of people to take this dear nation of ours hostage.

To us on the Chronicle, this is our only hope and the basis of our existence and development as a people.