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Opinions of Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

The Day that Ghana Stood Still

and Then Celebrated Injustice ? ? On the infamous Thursday, 29 August 2013, the entire Ghana as a country, stood still from 10:00 to about 13:00. The date had been scheduled for the to-be-discovered disingenuous nine-judges panel to deliver their verdict on Election 2012 petition filed in the Supreme Court of the land at 10:00. ? As typical of Ghanaians not respecting their time, always not punctual, the judges overdid it. They were over three hours late for reasons only best known to themselves. Instead of being in their seats at 10:00 (10 am), they came after 13:00 (1pm). ? When they emerged from their inner chamber, led y the Presiding judge, Justice William Atuguba, it was announced, Court rise. The audience rose to their feet in line with court homage procedures for these judges. When the judges had settled in their seats, Justice Atuguba in less than five minutes had read out their seeming hurriedly prepared verdict of no substance but pure rubbish. ? Upon all the established irregularities, omissions, deliberately collusive commissions of malpractices during Election 2012 to rig the elections in favour of John Dramani Mahama, Atuguba and his colleague-judges saw nothing wrong about them. They threw them overboard and declared, the election petition brought against the Electoral Commission and John Mahama has been dismissed. ? Atuguba upon all his intimidating posture during the Court proceedings, shouting down Counsel Philip Addison, could not offer a single statement spelling out why the petition has been dismissed. He directed that the full verdict statement will be ready next week, that is, from 1 September 2013 at the Supreme Court registry. What nonsense that is! For all the months spent hearing the case, and even from the date of hearing the oral clarification of the Counsels’ addresses until 29 August 2013, they could not prepare the detailed verdict report. This shows the scale of how incompetent and rotten the Ghana judiciary is, especially, the Supreme Court, the supposed bastion of justice and authority. ? From all indications, they would go and write the report taking cue from the public reaction to justify their completely nonsensical unprofessional corrupt verdict shamefully declared within five minutes. Those judges who voted to dismiss the case should bow down their heads in perpetual shame. By their disgraceful action, they nailed the coffin of justice on Thursday, 29 August 2013 at which same time they set loose the flying coffin of corruption, injustice, lawlessness and utter stupidity. ? Were irregularities of over-voting, voting without submitting to biometric verification, non signing of "pink sheets" by Electoral Presiding Officers to authenticate the results, foreign polling stations unknown to all parties in existence, duplication of serial numbers of pink sheets indicating the duplication to quadruplicating of pink sheet sets for undefined, although dubious reasons, duplicating of polling station codes etc., not occur? ? ? If the above incidents did occur as the whole world could testify to, following from what we viewed live on television and online, or heard and viewed on the airwaves, then the judges are not fit to dispense justice in Ghana. They are incapable of fairness in the delivery of justice. ? Are the judges voting to dismiss the case telling the world that the irregularities never occurred? Or, if they did at all, they do not constitute statutory violations? Where did they study law? How did they become Supreme Court judges, as incompetent, corrupt and unprofessional as I see them to be? I am really ashamed to be a Ghanaian with such people sitting around as Supreme Court judges with the power to pronounce death on people brought before them. What a shame! ? I pity all those that have had their cases brought before them for adjudication and had been found guilty. May those judges that voted to reaffirm the presidency of John Mahama, upon all the evidence to the contrary, suffer the consequential repercussions of whatever form they take, unto death. ? After the shameful verdict, the NDC family in the nation went into spontaneous applausive jubilation. Rather than weeping for the death of justice, they rather danced and ate to welcome the sustenance of corruption galore. The judges by their preposterous verdict, have sanctioned election rigging and official corruption in Ghana for good. They have given Mahama/Arthur-Amissah-led NDC government and party the licence to embezzle public funds, rig elections and execute their lawlessness with impunity. ? ? As I shall be writing in series expressing my views and concerns about the Supreme Court verdict, I shall end here. However, let me state without mincing words that a book will be written on this Supreme Court verdict that has denigrated the justice system in Ghana. I therefore invite one or two persons with writing skills or interest to join me write a book on this particular verdict that has reaffirmed the corruptibility, incompetence and unprofessionalism of the Ghana judiciary. ? Finally, could any media house provide me with recorded copies of the entire court proceedings? I would like to dispatch them to the International Court of Justice in Dan Hague asking them to keep the recordings for their records. They cannot help in this situation but to archive them for future reference when it does happen in future that Ghanaians go to war over election rigging as did in Kenya, Zimbabwe and other such countries. ? Can we ever trust our Ghanaian judges to deliver fair justice on such critical issues? They seem to have chosen peace, injustice or whatever, over JUSTICE. ? May any of the judges if they accepted bribes, or succumbed to the offer or promise of any kind that influenced their decision, perish same as Ananias and Sapphira did at Acts 5 in the bible. Amen. ? ? Rockson Adofo