A Circuit Court Judge at Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region, Gabriel Mate-Teye, has condemned the practice where some influential personalities in the Country, put enormous pressure on judges to tilt judgement to favour them and their cronies.
His comment comes at a time when some members of the judiciary have been exposed as corrupt in the latest work of investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI team.
Some 22 lower court judges are currently serving a suspension placed on them by the Judicial Council, after they were captured in the video allegedly taking bribes in the two-year investigative piece.
Twelve other high court judges have also been implicated and have been queried after which appropriate sanctions would be taken against them; together with over 80 judicial service staff also suspected to have played various roles in the bribery scandal.
But seven of the High Court judges were on Friday October 2, suspended by the Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur acting on the orders of the President.
The Magistrate, Gabriel Mate �Teye in his address to the assembly members at Ashaiman Municipal Assembly in Accra a couple of days ago asked chiefs, politicians and all other influential persons to stop trying to bribe the judges to favour them in their cases.
�If you are a leader; you have to be firm and upright; and by trying to influence decisions, you weaken the arm of government and we don�t push the agenda of government forward. We may think that by so doing we are courting some favours but it is very wrong� he stated.
�It is not only Assembly members as I have observed while I was in Tamale, Sogakope or Keta but opinion leaders. Opinion leaders are also part of the problem we are facing as a people. When somebody is wrong the person is wrong; why do we want to subvert or pervert justice and then bring all of us into disrepute. I pray that having been elected and appointed; you serve your term honorably so that at the end of the day glory will be to God�. He noted.
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