Chief Justice Nominee, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, has issued a warning to the public regarding the practice of giving money to certain individuals in an attempt to influence judges. She emphasized that such funds often end up benefiting the intermediaries rather than having any impact on the judges themselves. During her vetting process by the Appointments Committee of Parliament, Justice Torkornoo stressed the impossibility of bribing judges and urged the public to dismiss such perceptions. She strongly advised against providing money to individuals claiming to have the ability to sway judges, labeling them as “judicial predators.”
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Justice Torkornoo emphasized the need to address this issue of predatory individuals surrounding the judicial system and mentioned ongoing efforts to study ethics for both judges and staff
“Don’t give money to people to be taken to judges,” she said, adding, “There is a whole market; we call it judicial predators. It’s a whole predatory group around our function and that is something that we constantly try to address in our study of ethics both for judges and staff.”
Additionally, she refuted allegations of bias within the Supreme Court when delivering rulings on political cases, explaining that unanimous decisions indicate a reliance on the law rather than any form of bias.
“Whenever you encounter a unanimous decision, it tells you that the law is totally on the side of the position taken by the court, that every member of the court in fidelity to their judicial oath cannot take a different position, it tells you that, that is what the law is.
“So the only response is to learn from what the law says, it is not a matter of bias, it is a matter of the legal position.”
