President Akufo-Addo has responded to former President John Dramani Mahama’s claims that he has packed Ghana’s courts with purported “NPP judges”.
Mr. Mahama, speaking at the closing ceremony of the 3rd Annual Lawyers Conference of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Saturday, September 2, 2023, said, “Currently, the judiciary is packed with NPP-inclined judges because this government has carried out a deliberate policy of putting their people on the bench.”
“He [Akufo-Addo] has appointed the biggest number of judges onto the bench, it is more than 80 towards 100 and counting. You can see what the current president has done.”
“He has packed the court, and we know they have packed the court because they want to avoid accountability after they have left office.”
However, reacting to Mahama’s claims during the 2023 Ghana Bar Conference at the University of Cape Coast in the Central Region on Monday, September 11, 2023, President Akufo-Addo described such allegations as dangerous, condemning his comments.
“I’ve gone into this matter in some detail because of a new concept that has been recently introduced into our public discourse by no less a figure than the President of the fourth republic, the perennial NDC presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama, who has told the world that I have packed the courts with so-called NPP judges and that one of the key purposes of putative NDC victory in 2024, will be to enable him balance the courts with so-called NDC judges.
“Not only are these concepts of “NPP” and “NDC” judges new in our public discourse. They are also extremely dangerous and represent the most brazen attack on the independence of the judiciary by an allegedly responsible politician of the fourth republic.”
