Raymond Atuguba
Respected legal practitioner professor Raymond Atuguba, has stated that judges at the Supreme Court decide on cases according to their political affiliation.
He explained that, it is pretentious to assume that Judges do not have political ideologies that tend to influence them in crucial moments.
“In the Supreme Court, you have to make a balance according to the three political traditions – UP, CPP, NDC – because no matter how much we pretend, in difficult cases with a political twist, a judge cannot, but go deep into the intersis of his heart to seek guidance and once he or she arrives there, you find that you are going towards your political leaning,”
The former executive secretary to John Mahama stated.
He stressed that: “I have just started a research project where I have selected about 100 hundred cases which I call political cases and I’m looking at the judges who sat on it at the Supreme Court, and I’m looking at who appointed them and the pattern is clear, in difficult political cases judges decide according to their political leanings.
And this is not just in Ghana, it happens in the US too just that in Ghana we pretend that it doesn’t happen which doesn’t help us. We must acknowledge that deep down in their hearts judges are political. And that is why I respect Justice Dartey-Baah who in a public lecture stated publicly that ‘me I’m UP’. So the solution is not to say it doesn’t happen, the solution is you have three political traditions in the country, parliament must not approve a nomination to the Supreme Court which does not balance the numbers in the court”.
