The bribery scandal surrounding Ghana’s judiciary plunged the legitimacy of the West African nation’s legal process into deeper crisis on Friday when seven high court judges were suspended.
The latest sanctions come weeks after 22 circuit judges and magistrates were suspended, and 12 high court judges were placed under investigation, after they were accused of taking bribes in a ‘sting’ filmed by an undercover journalist.
“On the advice of the judicial council, the Vice President, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur…on Friday, October 2, 2015 suspended from office with immediate effect, seven out of the 12 justices of the high court on grounds of stated misbehaviour,” the judicial service said in a statement.
It said the vice-president had acted on the order of President John Dramani Mahama, who was on a visit to France.
The president asked the country’s chief justice to establish a prima facie case against the judges after the alleged corruption was exposed by a local newspaper. The newspaper claimed that court officials and judges were accepting money from clients for everything from giving appointments to ruling in their favour.
On September 22, hundreds of Ghanaians flocked to watch a three-hour public screening in Accra of the incriminating footage shot by the journalist. Some of the judges implicated reportedly tried in vain to block the broadcast.
Some of the judges have denied wrongdoing and filed a challenge in court, saying their suspension had no legal basis because documents relating to the video that were submitted by the journalist were not made available to them.
In 2013 the Supreme Court dismissed an election challenge by the political opposition, which had sought to annul the re-election of President John Mahama the previous year.
The ruling, which followed months of testimony, was accepted by the opposition and the case and its outcome was viewed as a testament to the judiciary’s authority.
