Supreme Court made mockery of Freedom and Justice on Montie 3 – Arthur K

A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Kobina Arthur Kennedy has criticized the sentencing of two radio panelists and a presenter of Montie FM as a mockery of Ghana’s Freedom and Justice catchphrase. A Supreme Court panel chaired by Justice Sophia Akuffo jailed the three – Godwin Ako Gunn, Alistair Nelson and Salifu Maase – on Wednesday.

They will spend four months in prison after being found guilty of scandalizing the court, defying and lowering the authority of the court and bringing it into disrepute by the court. According to the author of the infamous ‘Chasing the Elephant into the Bush’ the distinguished Justices at the country’s apex court seem to be blowing hot and cold.

Dr Arthur Kennedy who was speaking on news and current affairs program Ghana Ddadwen on Onua FM stated that if the Supreme Court was worried about its reputation, there were many grievous comments made by people after the election petition hearing in 2012, but such people were left off the hook and wondered why the court did not direct the Attorney General to take up the case but rather assume the prosecutorial powers.

“Indeed I agree with Justice Sophia Akuffo that the Attorney General should have done something about the issue but that does not mean that the court can take up the prosecutorial powers of the Attorney General.

For example if the Supreme Court is worried about its reputation, after the election petition hearing some people say the court took bribe, someone also threatened to declare war on some tribes, and there will be mayhem during the 2012 elections, was the court not worried about its reputation then are we saying the lives of the judges are more important than that of a whole tribe, this is the kind of justice that has made our freedom and justice motto a mockery.” Dr Arthur Kennedy observed that, people are given a year jail sentence for stealing a tuber of yam but when the same judges were caught on camera taking bribes, the Supreme Court remained mute on the matter, asking if that does not constitute a bloat on the reputation of all judges. While condemning the Montie 3 for their comments, Dr Kennedy said things must be done in proper way, because “we cannot do good things the wrong way”. He also made nonsense of the fact that some of the judges recused themselves in the course of the hearing, noting that cannot be enough guarantee that the rest would not be bias. “This is not really a contempt case it is a public security case, what they did was threatening public order, and in USA where I reside there will be investigation to establish whether the threat is credible, you know every fool can issue a threat but there must be established fact that people who made the said threat have the resources and the well without to carry out the threat, that is why I agree with the BNI when it concluded that the threats were not credible,” he added.