By Frank Amponsah
The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has removed three High Court Judges from office on recommendations from the Committee set up by the Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, to investigate a complaint lodged against the three judges by undercover journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas.
The President, acting on the recommendations of the Committee, as the Constitution enjoins him to do, removed the three Justices, Justice Ayisi Addo, Justice Uuter Paul Dery, and Justice Mustapha Habib Logoh, from office as Justices of the High Court on the grounds of bribery and corruption.
In a letter dated Thursday, 6th December, 2018, the Committee concluded that the conduct of the Justices amounted to a criminal offence under the Criminal Offences Act, 1960, (Act 29) (as amended) and President Akufo-Addo directed that a copy of the Committee’s report be submitted to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service for the requisite action to be taken.
According to Eugene Arhin, Director of Communications at the Presidency, the removal of the Judges was after the Committee established by the Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, pursuant to Article 146(4) of the Constitution, to investigate a complaint lodged against the three judges by Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas, recommended their removal from office.
The then- Chief Justice, Georgina Wood, constituted a committee to investigate the matter and dismissed the Magistrates who admitted taking the money and other rewards to dispense justice.
Some of the high court judges protested against any disciplinary action against them and proceeded to court to challenge the decision.
The four judges were among those who protested against the punitive measures whilst three of the judges then followed up with an action at the African Court on Human and People’s Rights.
The three judges, Uuter Paul Dery, Mustapha Logoh and Gilbert Ayisi Addo, on March 29, 2018 filed a fresh suit at the ECOWAS Court over their suspension from the Judicial Service, pending their likely removal from office as high court Judges at the time.
They were praying a Malian Court to restrain the judiciary from “proceeding with the impeachment of the plaintiffs pending the hearing and determination of this suit.”
The three were among the 22 lower court and 12 high court judges indicted in the September 2015 judicial corruption exposé.
Even before the release of the video, Justice Dery had filed an unsuccessful suit to prevent the footage from being screened publicly.
Justice Logoh also cited the Chief Justice -Justice Theodora Georgina Wood – for contempt of court and questioned why she was going ahead to begin impeachment proceedings against him when he had other suits pending before the court on his interdiction.
Logoh further sued Anas for fraud, questioning the legality of the investigation conducted by Tiger Eye PI.
Some of the judges already dismissed are Francis K. Opoku, Kofi Essel Mensah, John Ajet Nasam, Ernest Obimpeh, Kwame Ohene Essel and Ivy Heward-Mills.
The high
profile judges including, Justice John Ajet-Nassam, a High Court Judge, who
freed Alfred Agbesi Woyome in the controversial GHC51 million judgment debt
scandal, were videotaped and audio recorded in separate conversations with
suspects or persons acting as agents of suspects before them to compromise big
cases.
The over six months’ painstaking investigations
by Anas Aremeyaw Anas was premiered at the Accra International Conference
Centre in what has been described as the biggest scandal ever to rock Ghana’s
judicial service.
