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The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), is urging the judiciary to reclaim the benefits that were given to the four lower court judges that were removed from office over the corruption exposé. The four together with 20 others were removed from office on Monday. According to the Judicial Council, the four were paid their end of service benefits because they were remorseful.
But the anti-graft agency thinks the recommendations to that effect are discriminatory and unfair. The Executive Secretary of the GII, Vitus Azeem insisted in a Citi News interview that the four should be stripped off their benefits because “it is unfair to give it to only those who have shown remorse.” He argued that the punishment must be uniform across the board and bemoaned the seeming discrimination being shown by the judiciary. “I think that a crime is a crime, if you have committed a crime, whether you have shown remorse or not, the sanctions that go with the crime should go with all of them. Besides it will be unfair to those who did not show remorse because they thought they had done nothing wrong to go without their benefits,” he said. Vitus Azeem also argued that “there is even no way to judge whether the remorse is genuine or not and so I think they should all be treated equally.” He further asked for appropriate sanctions against the affected lower court judges aside the dismissal but cautioned that it should be done in accordance with provisions of the law.
“It depends on what the law says, if for instance the law says that after the committee has given its recommendation and the Chief Justice has acted on it, maybe that is enough, maybe because they don’t want double punishment for the same crime, I’m not sure about that. But I think that should have be the next step…so if the committee recommended that they should be prosecuted such will be done but if they say that just removing them from their position is enough then we are in a democracy, rule of law should prevail but we will take it like that.” Meanwhile, a former Commissioner of CHRAJ, Justice Emile Short has said the decision taken by the Chief Justice to dismiss 20 lower court judges is a right step towards restoring confidence in Ghana’s Judiciary. Speaking to Citi News, Justice Short contended that the expeditious delivery of a verdict on the conduct of the magistrates will rid the country’s justice system of bad nuts thus restoring confidence in the system.
