ACHPR INTERIM MEASURE FOR WOYOME, ASEPA HAD WARNED GOVERNMENT SEVERALLY OF PROCEDURAL ERROR
Yesterday when news of the provisional measure for Mr.Woyome by the African Court for Human and People’s Rights reached ASEPA we weren’t exactly surprised.
We had warned government severally to as a matter of fact uphold the fundamental human rights of Mr. Woyome throughout the trial and the steps to retrieve the judgement debt paid him and that included that the government would halt all processes against Mr. Woyome as soon as it was served a notice of application by the African Court for Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) in Arusha,Tanzania.
Ghana per article 40 of the 1992 constitution has ratified some of these international conventions that gives individual citizens the right to seek refuge with the ACHPR when they feel the legal system in the country does not allow justice to be served on them and this provision of the law is what Mr.Woyome activated.
What the Attorney General should have done was to halt all proceedings against Mr. Woyome as soon as the ACHPR served him through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But what did we see, the Attorney General went to the ACHPR to plead for more time to respond to the issues of human right abuses that Mr.Woyome had brought before it and then quickly ran back home and ordered armed military and policemen to forcefully enter the premises of Mr.Woyome to carry out valuation duties.
This was the weakest moment in Ghana’s 25 years of the practice of rule of law.
Especially when a lawyer who touts himself as a human rights lawyer is the President of this country and he watched on while this huge injustice was proffered on a Ghanaian citizen in the extreme breech of his fundamental human rights.
Now the ACHPR has established a Prima facie against Ghana, the country has also been served with a provisional measure to stay off any form of processes against Mr. Woyome and then given 15 days to respond to several queries.
This is the extent to which the current Attorney General has gone to ridicule Ghana’s judicial system to the world.
All 12 judges unanimously ruling to in favour of Mr. Woyome when our Supreme Court does not see anything wrong with the huge injustices meted out to him.
If our Supreme Court, the highest court of the land can be caught in such an embarrassing blunder, then there is a strong need to review the quality of judgments given by our courts.
The new approach to the adjudication in any country now is not just justice delivery but quality justice delivery that serves its purpose and our Judicial System and for that matter the Supreme Court should aim towards that direction as well.
It is our hope that a good amount of lesson may be derived from this judgment so that we don’t commit such judicial blunders again, We also encourage Ghanaian citizens to make good use of the ACHPR anytime that they feel the judicial system does not provide them with the justice they deserve.
The court has absolute jurisdiction over Ghana and cases that entails human rights abuses.
This will provide a supervisory option for our Supreme Court and reduce the judicial tyranny that is already breeding in our system.
Signed:
Mensah Thompson
Executive Secretary -ASEPA
0243019131
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