Fuseini Issah, a former New Patriotic Party, NPP, Member of Parliament for the Okaikwei North Constituency, has defended recent comments by Minister of National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah, to the judiciary.
According to him, the thrust of Albert Kan-Dapaah’s statement was sound especially as he emphasized the importance of impartiality of the judiciary in maintaining peace and security.

He is, however, concerned about a part of the Minister’s pronouncement where he uses the phrase, ‘tilted in our favour.’ Issah wants people discussing the matter to do so with the context in mind.

“The context in which he spoke, I don’t want to extrapolate that he means his political party, I don’t think I can do that … I don’t want to take it out of context and say something else.

He stressed that the unanimous decisions of the courts are not entirely new because a number of them were recorded during the 2013 election petition, which John Dramani Mahama eventually won.

He continued while making submissions on Good Morning Ghana programme of April 12, 2022; “if something is wrong, it is wrong. You can’t say even though it is wrong and we don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings or don’t we want to seem to be biased… I find it very difficult.

“Especially with that phrase of tilted in our favour, perhaps he could come again and explain further to us what he meant by tilted in our favour.

“But for that phrase, I find nothing wrong with what he said because as a Ghanaian, if the justice delivery system is perceived not to be fair… it doesn’t necessarily have to be real, just the perception alone that people run with gives the whole system some negativity,” he added.

Background

Albert Kan-Dapaah, speaking at a sensitisation workshop for judges of the higher courts – High Court to Supreme Courts – on the national security strategy, warned that the perception that the judiciary is biased has dire consequences on the country’s security.

He said if it is not checked, it will compel the citizenry to take the law into their own hands for personal satisfaction with the bench deemed biased.

“Injustice occasioned as a result of the absence of an effective justice delivery system or delayed justice or biased justice is certainly a threat to national security.

“Indeed, when injustice abounds, particularly in situations where the bench, which is considered the final arbiter of disputes, is deemed biased, citizens tend to take the law into their own hands most times without recourse to the established systems of justice delivery,” he said.

He added, “If the interpretation of the law is tilted in our favour all the time, people will start accusing the judiciary and will not have the confidence that they need.”

Source: Ghanaweb