29th August, a feat you need a seat

Thursday 29th August,

2013 remains a day and date on Ghana’s political, historical as well as legal

calendar that will never escape the memory of many Ghanaians for a long time to

come.

The 2012 General Elections brought

in its wake a land mark litigation which has no precedence in Ghanaian legal

history. Many citizens split hair on various platforms as how the structure of

the case would be and the plausible outcome. This has indeed been a marathon of

legal proceedings associated with often heightened tempers both in the face of

the court and among the citizenry through the Communicators of the litigating

parties.

The lay Ghanaian without any legal

background have acquired some level of knowledge about court proceedings. Legal

Practitioners’ alike besieged the Supreme Court to acquaint themselves with

legal knowledge of historical importance.Majority of Ghanaians desired to

appear at the last court of adjudication in the land, but space limitations

and security, restricted court attendance to parties involved in the litigation

and those whose presence in the face of the court is of relevance.

Legal vocabularies have also been

learnt over the period, such as the almighty ‘Amicus curiae’ which means friend

of the court, contempt,and contemnor. Electoral terminologies such as pink

sheet, over voting and the position of the Electoral Commissioner as the Chief

Returning Officer have all been learnt starting from 16th April when

the live telecast began to the 14th August, 2013.

Article 125 (1) of the 1992

constitution states “Justice emanates from the people and shall be administered

in the name of the Republic by the Judiciary which shall be independent and

subject only to this constitution” Again, Article 125 (2) also states “Citizens

may exercise popular participation in the administration of justice through the

institution of public and customary tribunals and the jury and assessor

systems” The above constitutional provisions culminated in the live broadcast

on both radio and television. Therefore,

the Ghanaian media deserves a pat on their backs for going all out to bring the

legal proceedings to the populace in their homes and various platforms on daily

basis from the Supreme Court thereby loosing huge revenues in air time sales.

Congratulations to the ink

fraternity for going out of their way to play their social role of informing and

educating the Ghanaian. Media outlets especially the electronic, complained

about loss of revenue due to the period when the live telecast begins and ends.

The national broadcaster, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) felt the pinch

and threatened to curtail the live transmission of the court proceedings. But,

the passion for public service and civil society’s appeals got the broadcaster

to rescind that decision.

The National Peace Council in

collaboration with the various religious bodies have called on political party

leaders and their supporters to give peace a chance after the Supreme Court

judgment. Civil Society alike are equally asking all and sundry to allow peace

to prevail.

Again, the Security Agencies have

given every indication yet of their capacity to maintain peace and order during

and after the 29th August. This has been demonstrated through route

marches on the streets throughout the country. The plea is for the Security

Agencies to discharge their duty on that faithful day with tact and high sense

of professionalism. There should be no acts of steep exaggeration which might

escalate a simple scenario into a volatile one.

The 29th August, belongs

to the Justices of the Supreme Court. The prayer is for God to grant them the

boldness and the wisdom to deliver a resounding judgment that will appeal to

all parties involved in the litigation to up hold the rule of law.

Nonetheless, immeasurable working

hours have been lost to the court processes. This has affected productivity in

the country. Against, this back drop, civil society had earlier questioned the

intent and purpose of the live broadcast of the litigation process. However,

the leeway to enable the entire process to be transparent has been abused.

After the Supreme Court verdict, there should be an unreserved resumption to

serious work to a renewed life of serious activity to rejuvenate the economy.

The delivery of the final verdict

would also be a relief to the many citizens who have the penchant character of

lax thoughts and flung mouths without concern to what emerge out of them not to

incur invitation for contempt of court.

As the whole world focus on Ghana, let’s make ourselves proud and confirm our status

as the beacon of democracy and peace in Africa. The United States of American

Government has already issued a warning to her citizens to be cautious of their

movement on the 29th August, and after wards. We should unit our

front and hold firm our thoughts as well as behaviour to prevent Ghana from

slipping into the arena of war. As citizens let’s not give work to the

International media for all the wrong reasons. Ghana has passed many litmus

test and we are going to perfectly skip this hurdle with ease. Let us not cut

our noses to spite our faces.

Let the media spare the country any

pain that come with hotheads. The media should allow level heads to decide and

not provide any fertile ground for civil strife to occur. At least as a people

well aware of history, we remember the role that the media played in the1994

Rwandan genocide.

Thursday 29th August,

2013 should not be remembered with our heads down, but a day that reasoning and

rule of law trumped well over and above ignorant tendencies.

Let us remember that, “The ones’

the gods would destroy they first make proud” Let us pay heed to the various

peace calls and eschew acts that will drown us as a people full of promise and pride

herself as the gateway to Africa.

Long live Ghana

Long live our democracy

Long live our judicial system.

Patrick Twumasi(0209045931)


ayalolo4@gmail.com>