Ghana’s Courts Now Turns A Casino

Predict & Win Judges Revealed

*..As Ghana’s Courts Now Turns A Casino*

*By Larry-Alans Dogbey*

Lovers of gambling would turn billionaires overnight if Ghana’s legal justice system is declared a casino, a facility mostly built within hotels for gambling. Walk into any of the country’s courts and put your money on a case declared as a “political trial” and you’ll be smiling to the bank because you correctly predicted the judgment.

Painstaking monitoring, interviews, eavesdrops and nosing round the country’s legal system is a worrying trend, a situation where one can predict a case involving an alleged misconduct of a political figure placed before a particular judge belonging to the casino within the justice system, and you would surely win.

There are over 82 High Court judges, about 26 Court of Appeal Judges and close to 11 Supreme Court Justices but high-profile cases find their way into the hands of specifically selected judges, and the outcome of those cases can easily be predicted.

Our observation is that during the Kufuor era, cases placed before them, involving NDC officials, those functionaries lost the cases miserably, and when the NDC comes to office, cases in which ex-NPP government officials suspected to have corrupted themselves, those judges ruled in favor of the officials.

Sometimes, even with numerous cases piled on them, they are brought down to decide on some cases at the lower courts, after which they went back. The late Steven T. Farkyi and the late Kwame Dixion Afreh readily comes to mind. The two were handpicked by the late Chief Justice, Edward Kwame Wiredu, to preside on the Abodakpi case and the Quality Grain case respectively. They were both Appeal Court judges but were given additional responsibilities as High Court Judges.

*At Fast Track High Court*

Highly placed sources within the Judicial Service name Justice K.A. Ofori-Attah at the Fast Track High Court and Justice Paul U. Dery of the Human Rights Division of the Fast Track High Court. Intelligence on Justice Dery biologically links him to the NPP Member of Parliament for Lawra-Nandom, Mr. Ambrose Dery.

*The Court of Appeal*

At the Court of Appeal are Henrietta Abban, Justice S.K. Kanyoke, Justice K.A. Acquaye and Justice Samuel Marfo-Sau.

*Supreme Court*

And in the Supreme Court include Justice Sophia Akufo, Justice Rose Owusu, Justice Jones Dotse, Justice Anin-Yeboah,Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie and Justice Stephen Alan Brobbey.

*Objective and Strong- Minded Judges*

Justice William Atuguba, Justice Julius Ansah, Justice Date-Baah, Justice Sule Gbedegbe and* **Justice B. T. Aryeetey have been *described as highly objective and strong- minded judges at the Supreme Court.* *Yaw Appau and* * *Justice** *Isaac* **Douse who are in this category but in the Court of Appeal, are hardly heard or ever empanelled to sit on cases* at the lower courts unlike Henrietta Abban and Samuel Marfo-Sau.

*Chief Justice Georgina Wood @Mama Gee*

Enter Chief Justice Georgina Wood. President John Agyekum Kufuor did her the honour in 2007, by putting her into Ghana’s history as the first female Chief Justice. Few days later, specifically on July 7, 2007, Georgina Wood was before President Kufuor to be decorated with the Order of the Star of Ghana, the nation’s highest honour for distinguished services to the nation. Same day, same venue and before the same spectators, she was handed one of the awards by the president to put around his neck.

Prior to becoming a judge, Georgina Wood worked with the Ghana Police Serviceas a deputy superintendent and public prosecutor for three years. She later joined the Judicial Serviceas a District Magistrate in 1974. She rose through the Circuit and High Courtsto become the presiding judge of the Appeal Court in 1991. She was appointed to the Supreme Court by President John Kufuoron November 12, 2002, and was nominated for the position of Chief Justice of Ghana in May, 2007.

One of her sisters is said to be married to Atta Akyea, the NPP Member of Parliament for Akyem Abuakwa North in the Eastern Region, a seat previously held by Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP flagbearer. She is remembered for illegally directing a judge to sit on a holiday on a case in which her brother- in-law, Atta Akyea, sought to torpedo the declarations of Presidential results in 2008.

Justices Stephen Alan Brobbey, Jones Dotse were said to have been part of a secret meeting with Mrs. Wood and Mr. Ansah Asare of the Readwide fame to vet the case and then select a judge to handle it.

*Justice Jones** Dotse, **Justice Amin Yeboah and Justice Baffour Bonnie*

Inside the Supreme Court is a three-man team of judges romantically linked to the NPP. It consists of Justice Jones Dotse, Justice Amin Yeboah and Justice Baffour Bonnie. With the backing of the Chief Justice, they sit to vet cases and select the judge before whom the case should be placed because of an expected outcome.

Jones Dotse is widely known to be a strong NPP man in Kpando in the Volta Region where he hails from and Ho, where he spent most of his adult working life as lawyer in private practice, until he joined the bench from Dick Anyaadi Dotse Chambers in Accra. His contemporaries are President Kufuor and Tommy Amematekpor who was a Presidential Adviser to Mr. Kufuor.

Justice Amin Yeboah comes from Nkawie in the Ashanti Region, ex-President Kufuor’s home town. Baffuor Bonnie got his promotion on the bench not long after overturning the ruling of Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) against Dr. Richard Anane over his adulterous affair with his American woman, Alexandra O’Brian.

It was also observed that some of the judges moved from the normal High Court to the Fast Track High Court, then onto the Court of Appeal, and within days, found their way on the Supreme Court bench. The interesting thing is that while sitting at the Court of Appeal, they are selected by the Chief Justice to do additional responsibilities as High Judges over high-profile political cases.

Mention can be made of Mrs. Henrietta Abban who jailed Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, the late Justice Stephen T. Farkye who jailed Dan Abodakpi and the late Dixon Kwame Afreh who jailed Kwame Pepra, Sipa Yankey and Ibrahim Adam. The two judges were at the Court of Appeal but were given additional responsibilities to preside over the cases which were highly political.

Indeed, Justice Marfo-Sau, who recently discharged the leaders of the messy Ghana @50 Celebration, Kwadwo Mpiani and Charles Wereko-Brobbey, was brought down from the Court of Appeal to decide on the case in spite of the overwhelming number of High court Judges.

*Justice Ofori Atta and Justice Henrietta Abban***

Said to be from Kyebi in the Eastern Region, he joined the Bench from private practice. Justice Ofori Atta was tasked to sit on Fast Track High Court to hear Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata’s petition against Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban to disqualify her from hearing the application for bail for being biased.

Mr. Tsikata had petitioned Mrs. Georgina Wood to bar Justice Abban from deciding on his bail pending an appeal, but the Chief Justice, in her response, insisted that although Mr. Tsikata’s allegations were serious, she would not deal with it administratively but rather through court proceedings, hence she placed the case before Justice Ofori Atta, and as expected, he threw out the petition, and Mr. Tsikata was back before Justice Abban.

Mrs. Abban infamously ambushed and jailed Mr. Tsikata, who had appeared in court without his lawyer thinking she going hold sacred her own ruling to wait until a Supreme Court decision on as an aspect of the case. She was later overheard by a young man joyfully retorting in Twi to her court clerks that “Maa jaili nua Maa jaili nu” to wit (I have jail Him, I have jailed).