Emile Short Challenges Atuguba To Publish Controversial Research

Supreme Court judge Justice Jones Dotse who was present at the presentation of the findings at GIMPA in Accra, described the findings as “an insult of the highest order”.

The Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo called it an attempt to import American style of research into Ghanaian environment while another Appeal Court judge said the findings constitute a direct attack on the integrity of judges.

He is yet to release the entire work and has expressed worry about the possible reactions to his work.

Dr. Emile Short who has also expressed concern about presidents appointing Inspector General of Police and Chief Justices want to study the law professor’s work.

“Publish it…I would like to see it” he said in an interview on Joy FM Friday.

The Human Rights expert said, ” academic research is useful if we can critique the methodology”.

Prof. Atuguba has said he sampled 100 political cases and compared it with the position of the judges appointed by the ruling party at the time.

It revealed that 14 out of 22 National Democratic Congress (NDC) appointees to the Supreme Court have given judgment in favour of the NDC.

On the other hand, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had 13 of its 16 judges giving judgments in favour of the party.

Emile Short said it is critical to find out how a case was determined as political and how the researcher reached the conclusion that a judge favoured the appointing authority.

“If the conclusions are valid, then there are lessons to be learned”, he said.

He added as long as positions like IGP and Chief Justice remain political, it will give rise to studies like this.

Source: Myjoyonline