Prof Gyampo reacts to appointment of new Supreme Court judges

Professor Ransford Gyampo, a senior political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, has highlighted concerns regarding the selection of three new judges to the Supreme Court.

As a result of the retirement of several justices, the three individuals currently serving as Justices on the Court of Appeal—Henry Kwofi, Yaw Asare Darko, and Adjei Frimpong—were appointed.

The appointment is contingent on the screening process as well as the approval of Parliament.

If his nominations are approved, President Nana Akufo-Addo will have appointed the most number of judges to Ghana's Supreme Court of any president in the country's history: 18 of them.

Professor Gyampo acknowledged the need for replacements after he retired and posted his acknowledgement on Facebook.

However, he stated that there should be a limit placed on the number of judges who can be appointed to the supreme court.

"There is no upper limit on the number of justices who can be appointed to serve on the nation's highest court, and this is something that needs to be taken into consideration." There are nine members of the Supreme Court who make decisions that are considered to be final in the United States.

"But in Ghana, there is no ceiling, and this is being exploited by very self-seeking, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, and self-perpetuating political cabals," he said. "In Ghana, there is no ceiling because there is no ceiling."

The political scientist supported his argument with the Democracy Consolidation Strategy Paper (DCSP), which was created in 2008 by the IEA-Ghana Political Parties Programme. He also advocated for a revision of the Constitution that was ratified in 1992.

"What is the current status of our Constitutional Review project, on which we have invested a significant amount of money? We have simply given in to the disease of policy discontinuity, and the only reason for this is that the process, although it was highly consultative, was started by an administration that came before us.

"We were all worried when President Mahama indicated his desire to balance out the courts, but the reality is that, given that there is no ceiling on the number of justices that can be appointed to the Supreme Court, it wouldn't be illegal if any future President decided to appoint 20 more justices to the Supreme Court in order to also have a firm grip on the judiciary. This is something that we were all concerned about when President Mahama made his announcement. Is this the direction that we want to go as a country?" He administered questions.