He spoke at an event in the USA
Abraham Amaliba says Mahama's comment is constructive criticism
Abraham Amaliba, a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC's legal team, has explained a comment made by the former President, John Dramani Mahama at an event in the USA.
According to him, Mahama’s harsh statement concerning the Judiciary is constructive criticism and not an attack on the judicial arm of government.
Speaking on Joy FM's Top Story programme, Amaliba explained, “It is our national duty to constructively criticise the judiciary and you heard him say that the Judiciary, the judges have a fixed tenure of office and he implored them to ensure that they do not do the bidding of those who appointed them. That for me is constructive criticism.”
He stressed that Mr. Mahama’s comment is “predicated on recent developments within the judiciary, particularly the Apex Court.”
“In the recent case of Abdulai, you see the Supreme Court veering into an area that they themselves have indicated that where you have another organ of state doing its work, they will not interfere or trespass into those domains, and yet you have a Supreme Court trespassing into the legislature and striking down a provision or Standing Order in the Parliamentary orders. The question to ask is that are we saying that Parliament did not deserve a hearing?” he quizzed.
Abraham Amaliba noted, “the statement he (Mahama) made qualifies that use of politicisation. What he meant actually was in what he said, that (look) your tenure of office is fixed, your salaries are fixed, go home with your salaries, you have nothing to fear so just do the work of the state and not any political party. That is the understanding of it and so that was not an attack, it was clearly a constructive criticism.
“You heard him right when he talked about the birth certificate issue and you were in this country, you saw how Ghanaians rose up against that judgement. The uproar, the refusal to accept the ruling from the Supreme Court that our birth certificate cannot be used to identify us as Ghanaians.”
Former President John Dramani Mahama while speaking to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) USA chapter in Boston, USA, indicated that most of the governance institutions have been politicised and cited the example of the Judiciary and their recent controversial judgements.
His comments were in agreement with the Dean of the University of Ghana School of Law, Prof. Raymond Atuguba’s research years back that revealed that it appears depending on which government appoints a judge, their rulings and judgments tend to favour the appointing authority.
John Dramani Mahama with party members at the Supreme Court