Editorial: Scandal in Judiciary must be handled with tact
Once in a while, a country is faced with critical challenges which sometimes shake the very foundations of that country.
A scandal of the nature and magnitude that has rocked the Judiciary can be said to be one of such challenges. Before ace investigative reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas’s exposé became public knowledge, many institutions, including the Judiciary, had been tagged as corrupt.
Advertisement
Others included the police, the Customs Division of the GRA and other sectors of the public service, including Parliament and the Executive.
In the instant case, the evidence is so overwhelming that those cited in the scandal have already been judged by public opinion to have committed the crime.
At this stage, the Daily Graphic is not in a position to sit in judgement over anybody, nor will we behave like Pontius Pilate and wash our hands off this otherwise explosive revelation whose ripples can be felt for many years to come.
In the first place, the successes
The position of the Daily Graphic is that those who would be found to have misconducted themselves should be made to face the full rigours of the law.
The latest revelation should serve as a wake-up call to all to stop behaving as ostriches and pretending that the entire Ghanaian society is not engulfed in pervasive corruption.
It is happening everywhere — parents who are seeking admission to schools for their children, people who attend hospital themselves or send members of their family to hospital, on our university campuses where grades are traded for sex, along our borders where Immigration and Customs officers extort money from travellers and traders, and many other places.
Advertisement
Corrupt practices take place on the highways, in the newsrooms of media houses, and in the communities where sakawa among the youth for material gain is the order of the day.
We must take action to cleanse all public institutions of corrupt elements and prosecute those who have breached the laws of the land.
The time to act and fight corruption head-on is now.