OF TOSSED TRIBUNALS, LOOTED LOTS AND SMILING STATUES

A: Introduction

The New Year started on a high political pitch with the colourful inauguration of the new President. Many were those who were invited to grace the momentous occasion of the second coming of St. John in this millennium.  If the cheers from the excited crowd was the yardstick for measuring popularity and admiration for each invited guest, then the Burkina Faso leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traorė, won the day. The reasons for his popularity may not be far-fetched. Reportedly born in 1988, the gentleman is barely 37 years old. He is a breath of fresh air in West Africa where octogenarian rule is gradually becoming the norm: Paul Biya, Allasane Ouattara, Bola Tinubu, Nana Akufo-Addo (until recently). Meanwhile, our population censuses show our youth constitute the greater percentage of our citizens.


Youthfulness aside, the crowd also cheered Capt. Traorė admiringly because of what they might have perceived as his ‘luck’ in getting to power through the barrel of a gun. This is so because, if a young African wants to get to power through ‘democracy,’ it is a costly and forlorn wish, excepting perhaps in Senegal. If in doubt, ask Baba Saddique and Ebi Bright; whiles at it, reach out to Ama Sey, too.


Thus, Capt. Traorė epitomised the aspirations of the majority of the youth. They admired his simplicity in appearance and apparel, and his fearsome body guards who looked like they meant business. No wonder ‘Nurse Yaa Yaa’ dared not spring forth from the crowd screaming: “Daddy, Daddy” in an effort to give Capt. a well-deserved hug.   In the premises, it is understandable that Monsieur Capt. drew the most applause from the youth in the popular stand at the Independence Square.

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By the way, welcome to the era of tossed tribunals, looted lots and smiling statues.

 

B: The business of governance begins

With the inauguration fun fair over, we are back to business and Parliament is in full session. Apparently, the Minority caucus is missing the old days of 137/137. Hence, their leader has decided to work as if to cover grounds for those MPs his side ceded to the other side in the last election. We pray he sustains the momentum with which he has started the 9th Parliament, more especially at the Appointments Committee.


Talking about the Appointments Committee (which retired O. K. Mensah-B alleges is unlawfully constituted), it is commendable how they have hit the ground running. As of the date of writing, three (3) Ministers had been vetted. The Finance Minister-designate came and re-affirmed his Party’s commitment towards removing some taxes and so on. Fair game. The Energy Minister-designate recited Manifesto aspirations of keeping the lights on, etc. Hear, hear!  The Attorney-General-designate’s vetting proved more eventful. He stated that the ORAL Committee of five eminent citizens announced by the President to recover looted State assets (as its name clearly means) is lawful. He also announced that the Government intends to reintroduce the long-scrapped ‘tribunals’ into the courts’ system.

 

C: Re-introduction of ‘tribunals’

I must confess that I did not read the manifestoes of the political parties that contested in the 2024 elections. I am not sure if the independent candidates had manifestoes of their own. The fact remains that I did not read them even if they did. In the various campaign messages that flooded cyber space, TV and the air waves, reintroduction of tribunals was absent.

It, therefore, came as a surprise when the Attorney-General-designate made the bold pronouncement on tribunals’ reappearance on the legal landscape before the Appointments Committee of Parliament. Not surprisingly, the non–NDC MPs on the Appointments Committee looked completely dazed and unprepared for the ‘announcement.’ They had no immediate and well-reasoned questions to submit to the nominee. Thus, the nominee proffered his Government’s reasons for bringing back tribunals as follows: The tribunals are part of the laws of Ghana and recognized in the Constitution, 1992. Secondly the Constitution states that justice emanates from the people so, it is only fair that ordinary citizens sit with judicial officers and judges to administer justice. With that explanation, the nominee went his way.


Now, for citizens who were the spectators of the unfolding spectacle - and who wanted to unravel the basis of the reincarnation of tribunals – two schools of thought have emerged. The first school of thought posits that the Government had no intention to upset the courts system as it currently exists. But after observing the great applause and admiration the Burkina Faso military leader - Capt. Ibrahim Traorė - enjoyed at the Independence Square on 7th January, 2025, it was obvious that the youth of Ghana missed military rule.


But considering that any endorsement or encouragement of military rule would see political parties disbanded, Parliament dissolved and all politicians thrown out of job, the Government thought it wise to devise a scheme that would satisfy, albeit only to some extent, the wish for some nostalgic military flavour. Thus it was that after combing through the Constitution to find something with military antecedent that would seem attractive to the populace, the lowest hanging fruit turned out to be the tribunal system, which has been abolished from our courts system for about 23 years now.


The second school of thought maintains that, the past eight (8) years of NPP rule saw the worst politicization of the Judiciary in Ghana’s history. Party affiliation to promote Government interests was considered the foremost requirement for judicial appointments. Thus, appointments to the highest echelons of the Judiciary oftentimes mimicked a nursery school game of fitting triangular-shaped objects into rectangular ones. Membership of court panels made for easy prediction of court decisions. Panels could change at any time without notice. Some judges spent over a decade without promotion whiles others leapt over their heads to the Supreme Court. Idle private practitioners populated the Bench.


People appointed into administrative roles with no prior practice experience at the Bar metamorphosed into judges and performed BOTH administrative and judicial functions in contumelious breach of the law. The well-designated court divisions were jumbled up to allow puppet judges to be handpicked anytime from any division to sit on any case that was of interest to the politico-judicial heads. The rarely-used “additional judge” concept became the order of the day whereby Supreme Court Justices routinely and willingly descended onto the lower courts to serve as “trial judges” in cases deemed to be of importance to the ruling political party.


Additionally, the General Legal Council (GLC ) became the weapon of corrupt, extortionist elements and a tool to silence political opponents – lawyers and non-lawyers alike. For instance, the body became so discredited when it wrote to warn an NDC Parliamentary aspirant to desist from being called “lawyer,” based on a complaint by the NPP candidate who was a lawyer. On the day of the resurrection, - sorry, the election – the non-lawyer NDC candidate won, the prior GLC intimidatory tactics, notwithstanding.


Furthermore, Ghana Bar Association Annual Conferences became campaign platforms for the NPP. The President could issue salvos to his political opponent from thence, to the applause of party members in attendance. And in equal measure, to the disdain of sympathizers of opposition parties and non-aligned members of the Association. Remember the “perennial Presidential candidate” jab? Indeed, it was at the 2023 Conference in Cape-Coast that the then Attorney-General emphatically announced that the incoming President of the 9th Parliament will be an economist. A pity it is that such a profound prophesy went terribly wrong.


Again, while some cases of perceived political opponents were on trial for about 8 years (Republic v Opuni & Others and Republic v Gregory Afoko refer) and CDD & Others v Attorney-General (Domelovo’s case), others promoting Government agenda were heard to conclusion within a matter of days ( Markin v Speaker of Parliament & Attorney-General refers). Even a constitutional body like the Rules of Court Committee was not spared the rod. The Committee was treated with absolute disdain. The Chief Justice usurped the Committee’s exclusive power to make the rules that govern the procedure used in all courts in Ghana. Instead, a new phenomenon emerged whereby the Chief Justice handpicked some judges with a sprinkling of lawyers to design ‘Practice directions’ for the courts! Indeed, one could spend the whole day discussing the state of the Judiciary in the past eight (8) years.


So, it is in the light of the above state of affairs regarding the Judiciary that the second school of thought is of the firm belief that, the NDC Government has lost faith in the Judiciary in its current form. And that explains why it intends to form its own court system, under the guise of reviving the tribunals. It is submitted that, whatever be the reason for the Government’s intended action of resuscitating the scrapped tribunals, caution and wise counsel must prevail. It is a treacherous path to beat.

 

D: A look at the tribunal system of old

(a)    Origins of the public tribunal system

In 1979, a special tribunal was created by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) military regime and called “public tribunal.” The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) came to power on 31st December, 1981 when the Government of Dr. Hilla Limann (of the 3rd Republic) was overthrown in a coup detát. The PNDC was, thus a military regime. The PNDC regime passed a law to consolidate its existence.[1] That was when the public tribunals were established as independent tribunals to work alongside the regular courts. The public tribunals had special laws passed to regulate their processes and procedure.[2]

 

(b)    The type of cases handled by the public tribunals

The purpose of the tribunals was said to be to achieve social justice, rather than the rule of law. There were tribunals at the national, regional, district and community levels and were governed by a Public Tribunal Board. The National Public Tribunal (NPT) had original jurisdiction to handle cases resulting from the report of a Commission of Inquiry, other offences arising under the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29), offences relating to rent control, price control, government revenue, imports and exports, and any offence created by the Public Tribunals Law of 1984. The regular courts remained alongside the public tribunals. However, their criminal, as opposed to civil, jurisdiction had been drastically reduced and diluted in practice by the creation of parallel institutions such as the Public Tribunals, the Citizens' Vetting Committees and the National Investigations Committees.[3]

 

(c)     Opposition by Ghana Bar Association and international human rights bodies to the public tribunals

The creation and operation of the public tribunals received stiff opposition from the Ghana Bar Association and international human rights institutions, including Human Rights Watch. Prompted by the widespread revulsion over the three judges' murder in June, 1982, the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) announced the decision of lawyers in private practice to boycott the tribunal system. The formal decision was taken at the GBA's annual meeting in September, 1982. The GBA described as "detestable" the absence of a right of appeal and described as "disturbingly prejudicial" the powers of the tribunals to decide "in advance…that legal technicalities will not be tolerated."[4]


The GBA boycott was denounced in the state-owned media and by the chairman of the
National Board of Tribunals as a political act by "reactionary forces hostile to the revolution." However in practice, individual lawyers had been appearing before the Tribunals, either for financial reasons or when a trial is seen to have a political dimension.
In January, 1984, then Chief Justice Apaloo reiterated the objections of the Judiciary to the establishment of a parallel system of law and urged the government to place the Tribunals under the supervision of the established courts. The same month, the PNDC attempted to meet these concerns on the part of the legal profession.[5]

 

(d)    The tribunals transitioned into the 4th Republic

When Ghana was ushered into constitutional rule, the public tribunals were merged into the regular courts system.[6] The main distinguishing feature of the tribunals was that the magistrates and judges in those courts sat and decided criminal cases with two persons who were members of the community and were not lawyers. As those who were around during the early years of the 4th Republic would attest, the one most enduring feature of the tribunals was that, it was the magistrates and judges who did the work. The two non-lawyer panel members were mostly seated, staring either into thin air or in the faces in the public gallery. Or much worse, uninhibitedly dozing off, with pleasure.

 

(e)     The tribunals were sent off in 2002

Consequently, when during President’s Kuffour’s first term in office the Circuit tribunals were abolished and the District and Regional tribunals were merged into the District and High Courts respectively, it was well received. Since then, the courts have worked just fine, with all their shortcomings. It is for this reason that the supposed reintroduction of tribunals into the judicial system is at once shocking and perplexing.

 


E: Are tribunals the answer to our judicial woes?

As the adage goes in Twi: “Sԑ wo di deԑ etuo ayԑ akyi a, wo nwe ‘nam da.” This loosely translates as “one will never eat meat if one dwells on the atrocities the gun has committed.” There is no point in dwelling on the past when one has the advantage of the future ahead. Are the tribunals the answer to dealing with the aspects of the judicial system that have failed Ghanaians?

Admittedly, the judicial system needs massive resetting (excuse the pun). Crucial areas that need immediate attention include the following:

                                        I.      Transparent and merit-based appointments to the Bench through an independent, non-politicized                                     appointments body backed by law.

                                        II.  True and proper implementation of the e-justice system.

                                       III.     Uproot corruption from both the administrative and judicial sections of the Judiciary.

                                      IV.    Purge the judicial system of magistrates and judges who have infiltrated the Bench to serve political party                       interests and those of expired corrupt judicial officers.

                                      V.      Among many others,… kindly fill in the blank space.

To the average Ghanaian who silently went to vote for change on 7th December, 2024, these are the real changes they want to see in the Judiciary, not a cosmetic re-characterisation of courts, likely with a sprinkling of non-lawyer party faithful as ‘tribunals’ that will supposedly serve as the salvor of all conscience. We do not need to go back to an era that only evokes anger and pain in a section of our citizens. Many of those citizens have moved on and, probably, voted for change in last December’s election. The Government needs to move forward and act incisively on the huge tasks ahead in the matter of the Judiciary.


F: What is the basis of the ORAL Committee’s existence?

As noted earlier, the Attorney-General- designate defended the ORAL (Operation Recover All Loot) Committee that was recently unveiled by the President. As its name implies, the Committee is tasked to “recover all loot” from politicians and their collaboration. Once citizens started questioning the legality of such a committee, the narrative changed to the objective of “gathering information from the public” for onward transmission to constitutional and lawful bodies such as CHRAJ, EOCO, OSP, the Police and the Attorney–General’s Department.

So, if someone visits an ORAL committee member in the dead of night and informs him that a certain Julor Kwakwe, a former member of Bank of Ghana owns a GH₵100 million mansion in Cantonments, Accra, and must be jailed; and the ORAL Committee passes on the information and supporting land documents to the Attorney-General for prosecution; and the Attorney-General decides to prosecute, who will be the complainant? The ORAL Committee members or the informant? Who will testify on behalf of the State; the informant or ORAL Committee members? Food for thought.

Thus, whether recovering loot or gathering information about loot, the ORAL Committee must reassess itself and yield to EOCO or the OSP.



G: I’ll praise myself while I’ve breath.

One phenomenon that gained traction, if not notoriety, in the past ten years or so, was the erection of busts and statues of certain persons in their own “honour’. Up until that time, there were, of course, statues dotted around schools and institutions in the country. In university of Ghana in the 1990s, we had busts of Mr. David Mowbray Balme at Balme Library and John Mensah Sarbah at Sarbah Hall, and so on. Considering that the illustrious lawyer and politician - Mr. Sarbah - died in 1910 and the Mensah Sarbah Hall of Residence was named after him, it was a posthumous honour done him. Also posthumous was the imposing statue of the great man that adorns the frontage of the Hall.

On the contrary, the splurge on statues in recent times have been made in honour of living beings, who present themselves to unveil the statues to much applause from their rented crowd. The bizarre part is where the “honour” is done at the ‘honouree’s’ cost. Even more bizarre are the honourees who feign ignorance and shock at the honour done them when they unveil the fibre-glass versions of themselves. Lately, we have seen busts and statues germinating all over the place, showing smiling and contended effigies of the beneficiaries. The living beneficiaries of these statues have been as varied as they have been intriguing.

Indeed, some have about three statues to their names and counting. The beneficiaries have included politicians, members of parliament, alumnus of public schools, traditional rulers, public servants, heads of educational institutions and so forth. Unbeknownst to the ‘honourees,’ the general public have become increasingly irritated by such acts of self-glorification and aggrandizement, while galloping inflation eats away the remnants of their resources after mandatory “haircuts.”

Matters came to a head when two particular individuals stepped forward with scissors in hand to cut open and announce their own entry into the “Statues Hall of Fame.” They were the sitting President of the Republic and the Executive Director of the Economic & Organized Crime Office. From thence, citizens openly criticized the proliferation of these statues and condemned the use of State resources for what they termed as needless self-adoration. The militant types even promised to destroy the statues if the then Government lost power in the impending national general election in December, 2024.


Even before the election date, some aggrieved persons could not hold their anger long enough. They attempted to topple the President’s imposing statue at Effia Nkwanta under the cover of darkness. It appears the cock crowed too soon that dawn so the perpetrators had to abandon their mission. But they would not leave without creating a gaping hole in His Excellency’s left calf. The plaque that was meant to teach posterity about the great man was also removed that night. Undaunted by the temporary desecration, the sponsors of the national honour quickly performed the needed surgery to restore Nana to his former gait.

In the meantime, on 7th January, 2025, minutes after the new President had taken his oaths of office, a band of aggrieved citizens reportedly invaded the premises of EOCO on the High Street, Accra, in broad daylight and smashed the EOCO boss’s statuette into smithereens. They walked away free. Coming events, so the saying goes, cast their shows.


On 13th January, 2025, the country awoke to the sad news that His former Excellency’s statue at Efia Nkwanta had been attacked once again by unidentified persons. Unfortunately, the attack this time had been more lethal and he had succumbed to his injuries. Pictures that appeared in the news depicted a pitiful sight. The entire edifice had been destroyed, leaving in its wake tiny pieces of fibre glass scattered around the concrete tiled base on which His Excellency once stood to welcome the sick and the dying to Efia Nkwanta Hospital. But in a rare show of the resilient and indomitable human spirit, His Excellency’s head, spotting his iconic heart-warming smile, did not take a hit from the brutal assault inflicted on the body. The severed head, which had detached from the body after the decapitation, managed to settle itself on a dry patch of the Harmattan-withered grass. It was most refreshing to see that despite the brutality His Excellency had suffered in the hands of the brutes, he kept his smile on. That is the mark of a true statesman.


Unfortunately for the EOCO boss, her ‘assassins’ were more ruthless. They destroyed everything of hers that adorned her statuette, including her bob-styled wig. Thus, we are unable to tell whether she kept her smile on, or she worked up a look of shock on her face as she did on the day she unveiled her own statutte at her office premises and wanted the world to believe that she had no idea about it until she was blinded-folded and marched to “Obaatanpa Tiwaa Gardens” to unveil it.


For some unexplained reasons, people have moved on as if the beneficiaries of the vandalized statue and statuette had gotten their just desserts. For most others, those events simply leave them cold. They have no feelings or opinions one way or the other. Some have even expressed the view that if the wanton self-adoration through the vehicle of statues does not stop henceforth, those already causing silent irritation among citizens will suffer the same fate. What sayest thou?

 

H: Conclusion

It has been refreshing to see the country once again change Government smoothly, to the admiration of all, including coup makers in power elsewhere. Ghanaians expect the new Government to walk the talk of its resetting agenda. For the Judiciary, we expect many positive changes, including expeditious hearing of cases to conclusion within a few days. After all, in Markin v Speaker of Parliament & Attorney–General , Ghanaians saw that a case could be filed, docket opened, motion assigned to a 5-member panel, the panel is convened, sits and makes a ruling, the ruling is typed, corrections are made, signed by all 5 Justices, certified by the Registrar, and issued to the applicant all in one day. Such is the swift justice citizens want to see, not a reintroduction of a tribunal system that has long been taken away from our courts system by law.


Again, if the new Government wants Ghanaians to take them serious (based on the overwhelming endorsement received at the polls), then they must strengthen and empower existing state institutions recognized under law to work. Such ad-hoc measures as the ORAL Committee may end up empowering the intended “customers” to cry  watch-hunting, and thereby scuttle the loot recovery efforts. It appears ORAL is an outcome of  Ablakwah & Another v Attorney–General & Obetsebi–Lamptey[7] (the “Jake bungalow case”). Thus, one would have expected that in the 137/137 8th Parliament, an effort would have been made to pass a law to regulate acquisition of State property by politicians and politically-exposed persons. In the absence of a specific law, much as the intention behind the ORAL Committee may be laudable, their effectiveness may be seriously hampered. It will be without any lawful basis.


On the subject of honouring statesmen and women, there is no doubt that such honours, epitomized by statues, is best when done posthumously. Thus, the recent phenomenon of persons in public office idolizing themselves with their smiling statues gives cause for worry. It appears the citizens’ abhorrence for such actions is what ended up in the President and EOCO boss’s statues being destroyed. There will be a better smile on one’s face in their grave when they know that their great deeds in their lifetime would live after them. Inaugurating one’s own statue and seeing it destroyed in their lifetime may be a tough reality to live with.

 

 

 

 











 

 



[1] The law was called Provisional National Defence Council (Establishment) Proclamation, 1982 (PNDCL 1)

[2] See, for instance: Public Tribunals Law 1982  (PNDCL 24),  Public Tribunals Law 1984  (PNDCL 78), Public Tribunals (Amendment) Law 1985  (PNDCL 108),   Public Tribunals (Amendment) Law 1989  (PNDCL 213) repealed by the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459)

[3] Source: https://judicial.gov.gh/jsweb/index.php/summary#:~:text=The%20National%20Public%20Tribunal%20(N.P.T.,offense%20created%20by%20the%20Public (accessed on 16th January, 2025)

[4] Culled verbatim from article titled “Ghana: Revolutionary Injustice: Abuse of the Legal System Under the PNDC Government,” produced by Human Rights Watch on 31st January, 1992, available online: https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/hrw/1992/en/21899 (accessed on 17th January, 2025)

[5] Same source as above

[6] On the recommendation contained in the Report of the Committee of Experts on Proposal for a Draft Constitution of Ghana, 1991 , pp. 124-130. See: Regional tribunals created under article 142-147 of the Constitution, 1992 and sections 23-27 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459) and Circuit and District tribunals originally set up under the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459) but repealed by Courts (Amendment) Act, 2002 (Act 620)

[7] [2012] 2 SCGLR 84

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