Ghana’s Parliament has passed a Bill to restore the country’s public tribunal system, despite a constitutional review committee recommending that tribunals be removed and replaced with regular courts.
The legislation now awaits the final assent of President John Dramani Mahama, known in the article as JDM. Its approval has revived fears of a return to the fast-track justice system associated with Ghana’s revolutionary past, when public officials were convicted by bodies critics described as “kangaroo courts”.
The Bill was passed during the “Midnight Hour” on Thursday, 16 July 2026, while much of Ghana was asleep. The Minority, led by Afenyo, walked out in protest rather than join the pro-tribunal majority.
Honourable Ayariga and the Majority supported the motion, while the Minority’s departure ensured its opposition was recorded.
The writer, Kwesi Yankah, says the legislation represents the return of a system that should have been permanently rejected. He describes it as “a revolutionary monster nicely cloaked in fugu democracy”.
The proposed return has so far prompted little public opposition. Apart from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), civil society groups have largely remained silent, with no major protests or public campaigns against the Bill.
The legislation is presented as a response to concerns that Ghana’s regular courts are too slow and allow people accused of serious economic crimes to avoid punishment. But Yankah warns that a demand for speed could lead to a system in which due process is weakened and “horror” gradually returns.
Memories of June 4
The article recalls interviews conducted in June 1997 with people who had been children when their fathers were executed after the 4 June 1979 uprising.
One interviewee said:
“I saw Mummy crying. Our house was full of people, some weeping, others holding up Daddy’s pictures in the newspapers. Mummy told me she didn’t expect him to be killed. She said if they had tried him, he wouldn’t have been killed. He was never given the chance to defend himself. Remember, recently ministers about whom certain allegations had been made in the press, got the opportunity to defend themselves. They brought in lawyers to defend them. My father never had the opportunity to defend himself. This really hurts.
Day in day out, the government keeps stressing June 4th, and thereby rubs salt in wounds. If those killed were alive they would at least have defended themselves. But they were gagged! Imagine the pain we have endured all these years.”
The children told Yankah that some of their fathers had been subjected to trials, while others had not. Those who were tried appeared before what he called “Kangaroo courts” tribunals whose members were unseen, whose questioning was limited and whose verdicts appeared predetermined.
Yankah says that, as a young columnist in 1979, he referred to the bodies as the “Rapid Results Panel”. They dealt quickly with prominent figures and rejected lengthy legal arguments, including what he calls “booklong” defences.
Those convicted of economic crimes could receive prison sentences of 50 years or more. Some sentences included hard labour, such as removing “perfumed” latrine from public sites and carrying it across the city at noon.
He describes that period as one of Ghana’s “unspeakable past”, during which public officials were rapidly declared corrupt and given unusual punishments. In his account, no person returning from a tribunal trial was declared innocent.
Constitutional concerns
The 1992 Constitution provides for public tribunals under Articles 126 and 142. Yankah links that provision to the 31 December Revolution, saying the Constitution was prepared in the final days of the revolution by a 258-member Consultative Assembly.
Its members included 10 representatives of the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, 10 from the National Council for Women and Development, 10 from the National House of Chiefs, three market women, one representative of the National Union of Ghana Students and one from the Ghana Bar Association, among others.
The National Union of Ghana Students and the Ghana Bar Association, he says, recognised what he describes as the hidden agenda and withdrew from the process.
The Constitution, now 35 years old, has been reviewed by successive committees. The latest Constitutional Review Committee, chaired by Professor H Kwasi Prempeh, submitted its report to JDM in December 2025.
According to Yankah, that committee rejected the tribunal system as a supplement to the regular courts and recommended that the constitutional provisions be deleted. It proposed replacing constitutional tribunals with more conventional courts.
He argues that Parliament is now bringing back the very system the review committee rejected.
The article also points to what it describes as signs of a renewed revolutionary atmosphere: occasional “Rambo style” searches and arrests, punitive bail conditions for opponents, pressure on freedom of speech and routine political arrests. It says an ORAL agenda has been frustrated by due process, presenting public tribunals as a possible final response.
With JDM’s presidency described as approaching its final stage and hopes of a third term fading, Yankah frames the legislation as a question of political legacy. He asks whether the President will give his administration a positive final gloss or approve a Bill that revives painful memories for the orphans of June 4.
“The legacy of a revolution nicely cloaked in John 3:16?” the article concludes.
“Hmmmmm.”
