The vice presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang is mounting pressure on the judiciary to crack the whip in recent attacks against it by a member of parliament.
New Patriotic Party (NPP) lawmaker Ken Agyapong called a judge “stupid” on live TV recently over a land case involving him and another person. He has since apologised through a publication in the newspaper, however, the High Court judge Amos Wuntah Wuni has summoned him for contempt.
Speaking at a meeting with some civil society organisations in Accra, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said if the judiciary is not seen to be fair in the application of the law, cynicism will grow among Ghanaians.
“If you talk about name and shame it should be consistent. If you are going to apply punishment it should be consistent. If you say somebody has scandalized the law court and you allow the process to go through; the person has apologized and has done everything, the law took it course, the person was fined, the person was sentenced, the person was in prison. You say clemency, it is part of the judicial system; and people pretend they don’t understand why there should be a petition.
“Another person does the same thing, also scandalizes the court and just say he is coming to apologise so it is okay; that is corruption. And I want to see that also highlighted,” the former education minister under the John Mahama administration said.
