Help boost public confidence in judiciary – NDC lawyer to CJ nominee

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A member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) legal team says Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Torkornoo will have a daunting task in repairing the image of the judiciary if confirmed as new Chief Justice. 

According to Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, there is no public confidence because the image of the judiciary has been battered.

He made the comment on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Wednesday while reacting to the nomination by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The President in a letter to the Council of State on Tuesday, April 25, said her nomination is to avoid any vacuum that would occur following the retirement of the current Chief Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah on May 24. 

Justice Mrs Torkornoo per this nomination, will be vetted by Parliament to be approved or rejected.

However, lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe said though Justice Mrs. Torkornoo has distinguished herself in the legal profession having been a judge for 19 years, she has to redeem the image of the profession.

As a member of the NDC legal team, he is hoping for a change of the status quo which he claims majority of the times are biased.

The legal practitioner cited how Ghana’s judicial system dropped from first to sixth in Africa in the 2019 Rule of Law Index by the Centre for Democratic Governance to buttress his point.

As a private legal practitioner, Mr Tamakloe is hoping Justice Mrs Torkornoo will address the bottlenecks in the justice delivery system in Ghana to win back public confidence.

He also advocated for the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana for an improvement of their conditions of service.

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