Franklin Cudjoe: It's troubling to have partisan judges preside over cases.

franklin Cudjoe

Founding President of the Imani Centre for Policy and Education (Imani Africa), a policy think tank, Franklin Cudjoe has expressed worry over the appointment of pro-political judges into the country’s courts by Presidents.

Mr Cudjoe noted that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who came to power on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has appointed more judges to the courts than all his predecessors and it’s “not cool” that he has appointed such a large number of judges of pro-political judges.

“I do worry gravely that our courts get packed with pro-political judges. And records show Nana Addo has outdone all his predecessors by a factor of five. Not cool “

Mr Cudjoe’s comments come in the wake of assertions by former President John Mahama that Ghana’s Courts have been packed with NPP-inclined judges appointed by President Akufo-Addo and that the next Government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will seek to balance the imbalance of so many PRO-NPP judges by appointing pro-NDC judges.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo alone has appointed in excess of eighty judges to the superior courts in his almost seven years as President. None of the Presidents who came before him have done even close to half the number he has appointed. Some critics have said that such massive appointments tend to weaken trust in the judiciary.