Judicial Probe Is Definitely In Order

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

I sincerely don't know what he means, when Mr. Dennis Kojo Ofosu, the chairman of the legal committee of the Progressive People's Party (PPP), caustically carps Mr. Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie for aptly and promptly calling on Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood to initiate an investigation into the question of whether, indeed, the Supreme Court judges who presided over the 2012 presidential election petition may have been unduly influenced in their decision by a prominent appointee of the Mahama government (See "NPP's Petition to CJ Myopic and Selfish - PPP" Radioxyzonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 11/12/13).

The call by the General-Secretary of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), follows a leaked audiotape conversation in which the recently dismissed Deputy Communications Minister, Ms. Victoria Hammah, is allegedly heard telling a friend, on the phone, that Nana Oye Lithur, the substantive Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, had privately and prejudicially met with the Atuguba-presided panel of Supreme Court jurists shortly before the latter publicly handed down its August 29 verdict dismissing the Akufo-Addo/NPP lawsuit challenging the electoral legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama.

And here, ought to be promptly recalled the fact that the unauthorized audiotape recording of Ms. Hammah was done by the sacked deputy minister's own driver, who is also widely reported to be Ms. Hammah's blood relative.

What makes Mr. Owusu-Afriyie's call for a probe apt and timely, primarily hinges on the question of the integrity of the highest court of the land, as well as national security. In other words, if it is found, via a forensically sustainable investigation, that, indeed, Mrs. Oye Lithur privately conferred with the Atuguba panel immediately prior to the pronouncement of the latter's verdict, then clearly what we have here is an inescapable case of judicial nullification. In simple terms, the wrong Election 2012 presidential candidate may very well have been gratuitously and invidiously endorsed by the Supreme Court of Ghana.

Should the preceding turn out to be the case, then Chief Justice Wood would be left with no other credible alternative than to declare a mistrial. If this happens, a new Supreme Court panel may have to be reconstituted for a new and fresh trial to begin. The country would then effectively be thrown into a constitutional crisis. This is a quite complicated proposition, because the professional integrity and the very occupational fortunes of the nine judges who presided over the 2012 presidential election would be directly at stake, as almost each and every one of these judges may well stand guilty of a flagrant - if not outright criminal - breach of public trust and our national security.

And this is precisely where the Progressive People's Party's Mr. Dennis Kojo Ofosu may very well find himself to be more akin to a shameless hireling in the pay of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC), than being veritably the substantive chairman of the legal affairs committee of the PPP. For what better ingredients for shoring up our national stability and unity, besides the ministration of unalloyed justice and adjudicatory poise, could one expect from the prime operatives of the highest court of our land?

We need to also significantly point out that the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection is the wife of Mr. Tony Lithur, counsel for the first respondent of the the Election 2012 presidential petition. That respondent, of course, is none other than President John Dramani Mahama himself! But that the Lithurs presently occupy prominent and "plummy" positions in the Mahama government, may not be altogether sheer happenstance, or a situation that is wholly predicated upon academic and/or professional merit. And it is in our utmost national interest to promptly investigate and put paid to all the preceding doubts.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
Nov. 14, 2013
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