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To save peace, the justices
killed the truth
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
July 12, 2012
Hopefully, the title of this
article will not appear as a cause for news headlines, should
the Supreme Court render a bad verdict on the 2012 election
petition trial.
As it is now, fear for a violent
outcome has become one of the expectations should the court
render any judgment, one way or the other.
And ominously, here comes the
three media personalities hauled to court on contempt charges.
More ominously, they were brought there by our very own
justices.
The trial that was originally set
out to petition election result has turned into a contest
between freedom of speech and court authority,
Sammy Awuku, Stephen Atubiga, and
Ken Kuranchie, all journalists, have been arrested, imprisoned,
and brought to court on charges of contempt for statements made
that are now deemed as inflammatory by the supreme justices of
peace overseeing the election petition trial.
So what started as a petition on
an election result is now producing a chill on free speech.
But Professor Kweku Asare has an
interesting posture on the unfolding event.
He writes:
“There is no empirical evidence
that robust debate in the public square is a harbinger of war
any more than dead silence portends peace.”
But the court has already
presumed, based on the charge leveled at the three journalists,
that a reaction by the media to their verdict will lead to
mayhem in the streets.
So why are we in court then, to
settle for peace or raise mayhem?
It is pathetic to think that
policing on the media, before a verdict from the court is
issued, may stop the anticipated mayhem.
And equally pathetic is it to
think the contempt charges are for statements not made in the
courtroom but outside it and away from these judges.
How these utterances amounted to
court contempt or did in anyway scandalize or lowered the esteem
of the justices, should be left for legal experts to say.
I write commentary and do not
claim to provide expert opinion on the law.
It matters to me that the
defendants on trial are journalists. They were commenting on
proceedings in court from seats outside the courtroom.
Their acts, therefore, cannot be classified as engaging
in contemptible acts.
Kuranchie agreed with Awuku that
the court “was selective and hypocritical” in its handling of
the petition case.
Atubiga did offer that regardless
of the finding, the NDC (the respondent) would not obey any
court order to hand over power to the NPP (the petitioner),
should that be the ruling.
The above commentaries may be
described as inflammatory, but do they reach the level of
contempt as postulated by the justices?
I am not denying that the
justices face danger. I will not trade places in court with them
on this case, even if I were a King Solomon.
But on the contempt charge case,
I am firmly on the side of free speech.
This election petition trial is a
highpoint in our history, despite the high political drama. How
we use this moment to conduct the search for truth and justice
in the wake of a volatile 2012 election is critical for our
future.
This trial is a transformational
moment in the sense that it can bring us into a better realm for
election administration and, therefore, resulting in good
governance.
Or is the moment going to be
turned into a waste, a flop on the belly because the justices,
for lack of courage, fail to rise to the occasion for the
courage to render justice?
A reference to Greek mythology is
in order here:
Zeus, to fool his wife Hera about
his philandering, turned Lo, his lover, into a heifer. The wife,
Hera, suspicious anyway, asked for the heifer as a gift.
Hera quickly placed Lo, now a
heifer, under the watch of the “hundred eyes monster ” who was
reputed never to sleep.
Zeus, realizing his mistake sent
Hermes (justice) to free Lo (truth). Hermes succeeded in lulling
the monster to sleep and cutting off its head to free Lo.
Presumably, the headlines in
ancient Greek did not read the opposite: That “Hermes, to arrive
at a peaceful resolution, killed Lo.”
There was no need to kill the
"hundred eye monster." All
that was needed or wanted was the true identity as to who and
what was placed under his care.
The story may be apocryphal, but
the morale is the same one facing the justices today.
The truth must be freed, not its
guardian killed, in this case, justice itself. And the sooner,
the better for all of us.
The truth about the election must
be produced. A
proper verdict that helps the nation to move on must be issued,
not the ordering of contempt charges on journalists.
We need truth in our
electioneering processes.
This will assure us a maturing democracy, which in turn
will bring the responsibilities required in our public arenas
for free speech.
It must not be the duty of the
courts to issue abridgments to free speech outside that granted
by the constitution.
Unfortunately, what is happening
now is that the justices have seized the headlines.
Through their acts, they have
become the subjects in the trial and have turned the journalists
into victims in a misguided contempt trial; all in an attempt to
prevent a presumed future conflagration.
This is a diversion that must be
sneered at. It is an
act far worse in the long term than the potential danger
imagined for the full use of free speech at this particular
time.
Besides, to fine contempt outside
the realm of the court was not the task given to the justices.
Threatening as the consequence of the petition trial may be, it
is still the verdict for it that the judges must tackle with
courage first and not spend time educating the public on what
free speech is.
That education part can be done
efficiently by others.
Renowned leaders like former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan are already doing their part to
educate the public. They have spelled out the benefits, the
risks, and the dangers that come with free speech.
What is needed from the bench is
a verdict on the petition trial, with truth and courage, rather
than dwell on freedom of speech and contempt charges.
Was the election stolen as
petitioned?
Was the Electoral Commissioner
right in declaring the process legit?
For now and as long as the judges
wear their robes, appear wise, are on top of the legal game,
look solemn, and stay out of politics, their public esteem is
guaranteed and cannot be threatened by free speech.
Hopefully, after the verdict on
the journalists is done, the result will not have a chilling
effect on my ability and freedom to write about these justices
and others to follow.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, publisher,
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, July 11, 2012
Permission to publish: Please
feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited. If
posted on a website, email a copy of the web
page to publisher@ghanadot.com. Or don't publish at all.
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