Ghanaian legal scholar and law professor, Prof Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has cautioned Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie against making public comments that could be perceived as partisan political statements.

Prof Azar’s comments follow remarks by the Chief Justice expressing surprise at the performance of some state institutions under the current administration compared with what he described as the situation over the past eight years.

In a Facebook post on September 2, 2026, titled “The Burden of the Robe,” Prof Azar said while he understood the sentiment behind the Chief Justice’s remarks, he was concerned about the language used.

According to him, the phrase “the past eight years” carries an unmistakable partisan meaning in Ghana’s political discourse and could therefore be interpreted, fairly or unfairly, as an assessment of one political administration against another.

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“That is territory the head of the Judiciary should avoid,” Prof Azar stated.

He acknowledged that judges do not cease to be citizens when they assume office but argued that the judicial robe necessarily places constraints on their public speech, particularly in the case of the Chief Justice, whose comments carry the institutional weight of the Judiciary.

“Judges do not cease to be citizens when they assume office. But the robe necessarily constrains their public speech. This is especially so for the Chief Justice, whose words inevitably carry the institutional weight of the Judiciary.

“We rightly insist that politicians respect judicial independence and stay out of the judicial arena. The obligation is reciprocal. “Judges, particularly the Chief Justice, must also exercise the restraint necessary to stay out of the partisan political arena. The point is not whether the observation is right or wrong. Nor is it about the motives of the speaker. It is about protecting an institution.

“There will be cases before our courts involving the acts and omissions of the previous government. There will be cases involving this government. No litigant should have reason to wonder whether the head of the Judiciary has formed a favorable or unfavorable view of any administration.

“Judicial independence requires political restraint, from politicians toward judges, and from judges toward partisan politics," he added.

The Chief Justice made the remarks during a visit to the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) on Wednesday, September 2, 2026.

He praised the performance of MIIF and other public institutions under the current administration, saying some of the developments he had witnessed had left him questioning what had happened in Ghana over the previous eight years.

The Chief Justice said his visit to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) earlier that day had further reinforced his impression that some public institutions were now performing significantly better.

“I must congratulate you. I mean, you have done marvellously well. Sometimes, when we hear about the things that you have done and the things that some organisations are doing now, we wonder. Some of us keep wondering what we really have been doing in the past eight years,” he said.

He also referenced SSNIT’s previous consideration of selling some of its prized assets, including the Labadi Beach Hotel.

“We've just come back from SSNIT. We went to SSNIT this morning, and the kind of things that we heard and what we had heard even before we went there, if you compare that with the fact that, not too long ago, SSNIT was preparing to sell its prized assets like the Labadi Beach Hotel, you wonder how Ghana could have sunk so low,” he added.



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