Justice Jones Dotse of Ghana’s Supreme Court has asked lawyers and politicians to refrain from making statements that could prompt Ghana to revisit the 1982 kidnapping and murder of three high court judges.
The senior judge stated that lawyers and politicians must be cautious in their comments so that judges are not singled out for criticism.
He stated that Ghana has a terrible history in which three Hugh court judges were murdered, and that as a people, we should not have a situation in which people make disparaging remarks about the judiciary.
He was not saying these things because he was a judge, he said, but he was concerned that judges might become targets of assassination as a result of comments made by others.
“We have had three distinguished judges of the high court abducted and killed. We celebrate this incident since it occurred…As lawyers, we should not make disparaging comments and remarks that will revisit the occurrences of 1982.
Therefore, it takes all of you to be very circumspect in making dangerous comments against the judiciary. I do not say so because I am a judge. After all, once you are in it, you are in it. But comments of members of the bar and senior politicians should be such that judges are not put up for sale by those who want to cause commotion and confusion in the country.”
Background
On June 30, 1982, three High Court judges were assassinated: Justices Kwadwo Adjei Agyepong, Poku Sarkodie, and Mrs. Cecelia Koranteng-Addow, a nursing mother.
The three justices were assassinated alongside a retired Major from the Ghana Armed Forces. The retired major, Sam Acquah, was the Director of Personnel at the Ghana Industrial Holding Corporation (GIHOC).
According to Roger Gocking’s History of Ghana, the judges overturned decisions made by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council’s People’s Revolutionary Courts. It turned out that all three judges were sitting in court, reviewing cases brought to them by disgruntled citizens regarding the treatment meted out to them by the AFRC junta led by Mr Rawlings following the June 4, 1979 coup.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
