By Larry-Alans Dogbey
“We want to assure the nation that we do not have NDC, NPP, PNC, CPP, GCPP or any political parties on the Bench. What we have is a Ghanaian Bench whose unalloyed allegiance is to Mother Ghana no matter which party is the government of the day. In fact, it is against the rules of ethics of the Judiciary for any member of the Bench or staff to be a member of any political party or supporter of an independent candidate.”
The above words were authored by a sect within the Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana in their reaction to concerns of bias raised by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
However, checks and several checks by The Herald have revealed one of the country’s top judges at the Supreme Court to be a card-bearing member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), and got to the highest court of the land in record time, based on his umbilical connection to his friend, ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor.
From the Volta Regional capital, Ho, where he lived and worked as a private lawyer, to Kpando, his hometown, right down to Accra where he finally made his way to the Court of Appeal, Justice Jones Victor Mawulom Dotse’s romance with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was not in doubt.
Indeed, he is said to have made his way onto the bench as a result of his connections with ex-President Kufuor. He is a devout Roman Catholic with an infinite ambition of becoming Chief Justice, someday in the future.
There are conflicting reports over which portfolio Justice Dotse held when he was in Ho. While some say he was strong and active card-bearing member of the party, others insist that he was actually NPP Regional Secretary in the 90s.
Justice Dotse used his influence in the Volta Regional capital, and together with Mr. Tommy Amematekpor, an advisor to ex-President Kufuor, on what some have claimed to be on spiritual affairs, they both actively campaigned for Mr. Kufuor to become president. The three, remained friends throughout the Kufuor presidency, and that friendship has prevailed till date.
Justice Dotse was the one who wrongfully jailed Kwabena Amaning aka Tagor and Alhaji Issah Abass, for 15 years each on narcotic drug-related offences in what legal minds have argued was a stage-managed trial to give the impression that the Kufuor government was, indeed, fighting the cocaine mess that had engulfed the country at the time.
It is the same Justice Dotse who presides over a three-member committee which sits, vets cases and decides which judge should sit on a particular case for an intended objective.
His law firm, Mawulom Chambers, according to the party insiders, was actively used to plan and execute lots of party agendas. Justice Dotse ceded the chamber to his boys, Mr. Stephen Dzanku and Ernest Gaewu, when he moved from Ho to Accra. His law firm is located behind the Goil Filling Station in Ho, within the Ho Central Constituency.
He was also a close friend of the late Chief Justice, George Kingsley Acquah and the late Justice Theodore Kwame Adzoe, when they were both in Ho serving as a High Court Judge and president of the Volta Regional Bar Association respectively, with Mr. Dotse serving as Secretary to the Volta Regional Bar Association.
When moved to Accra, from Ho, he teamed up with his lifelong friend, Dick Anyaadi, and together, they formed what became known as Dick Anyaadi, Dotse and Associates, a law firm located on the Fourth Floor of Total House, formerly Mobil House, which is adjacent to the Cedi House in Accra.
Mr. Justice Dotse was onetime a board member of Awudome Secondary School (Awusco) in Tsito, also in the Volta Region. He did his Sixth Form at Mawuli School, having done his Form Five at Kpando Secondary School, also in the Volta Region. He was also the president of the Volta Region branch of the Rotary Club.
Justice Jones Dotse, Justice Anim Yeboah and Justice Baffoe Bonnie Committee
Inside the Supreme Court is a three-man team of judges romantically linked to the NPP. It consists of Justice Jones Dotse, Justice Enin Yeboah and Justice Paul Baffoe Bonnie. It is with the backing of the Chief Justice, that they sit to vet cases and select a judge before whom a case should be put for an expected outcome.
Justice Enin Yeboah comes from Nkawie in the Ashanti Region, ex-President Kufuor’s home town. Baffuor Bonnie got his promotion on the bench not long after overturning the ruling of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) against Dr. Richard Anane over his adulterous affair with an American woman, Alexandra O’Brian.
The setting of the committee was the brainchild of the late Chief Justice, George K. Acquah, following uproar and claims that lawyers were influencing Court Registrars to put their cases before particular judges who were either their schoolmates or very weak to be manipulated with money. However, the committee under Chief Justice Wood has assumed an injurious role.
Mr. Justice Paul Baffoe Bonnie, Mr. Justice Enin Yeboah, Mr. Justice Dotse and Ms. R. C. Owusu were appointed to the Supreme Court by ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor.
Legal minds The Herald spoke to were of the view that handpicking only Supreme Court judges to be members of the committee was not good enough and that a mixture of judges from the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court nominated by the Magistrates and Judges Association can hold the Scale of Justice in balance in this endeavour.
