CJ, Supreme Court Judges too charitable to Prof. Atuguba over research – Lawyer fumes

A private legal practitioner, Yaw Oppong, says the Supreme Court judges have been charitable to Professor Raymond Atuguba over his research Aclaims that political appointments have an influence on decisions by the judiciary.
According to him, the law professor at the University of Ghana should have presented his research findings to the judiciary looking at the magnitude of the matter on the apex court’s reputation.
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“The judges were too charitable and lenient towards Atuguba at the function, looking at the magnitude of the matter and it implications”, Lawyer Yaw Oppong on Monday told host of Adom FM’s Burning Issues program hosted by Afia Pokua on the controversies surrounding the alleged research findings.
Lawyer oppong said he expected his colleague to have presented his research findings to the judges through the CJ about the finding before going ahead to make known his findings to the public.
“Prof. Atuguba should have presented his research findings to the judges through the CJ about the finding before going ahead to make known his findings to the public”
“He should’ve made his findings known to the legislative arm of government just as auditors who embarked on their works do before publication”, Lawyer Oppong noted.
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Professor Raymond Atuguba has come under heavy criticism following a research presentation at the GIMPA Law Conference stating that his research findings on the Supreme Court of Ghana suggested that rulings on some 100 political cases for the past 25 years have gone in favour of the political parties that appointed the judges who sat on the cases.
It revealed that 14 out of 22 National Democratic Congress (NDC) appointees to the Supreme Court have given judgment in favour of the NDC.
But that did not sit well with the Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, together with other judges of the apex court who has dismissed Prof. Atuguba findings.
Justices Sophia Akufo reacting to Prof Atuguba’s findings said the judiciary won’t accept the findings of an assertion of judicial bias among the Judges of the apex court and therefore warned Professor Atuguba to be very careful.
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Contributing to the discussions on Adom FM, a renowned constitutional lawyer and a Senior Lecturer at Ghana School of Law, Maxwell Opoku–Agyemang has also added his voice to the numerous calls for Prof. Atuguba to publish details of the said controversial research for proper scrutiny.
“He should publish the full details of his research to clear the minds of the public about the respected arm of government”, Opoku-Agyemang demanded during an interview with Afia Pokua.
“I’m patiently waiting for the full details of the said 100 cases Atuguba used as samples in preparing his research”, he stressed.
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Apart from Lawyer Opoku-Agyemang, a former CHRAJ boss Emile Short has also urged law professor Raymond Atuguba to publish the damning research whose findings attempted to draw a link between the political appointment of judges and their judgments.
He said the publication of the entire work will help in critiquing the academic research constructively, following the displeasure of Supreme Court judges.