Nigeria, Sept. 1 -- Seven years ago, in 2018, my good friend and former Dean of Law at the University of Ghana at Legon, Professor Raymond Atuguba, undertook a path-breaking study which sought "to move away from the perception that Justices of the Supreme Court dispense justice impartially under a constitutional democracy and reflect on the influences on the Justices as they are taking decisions." The focus of the study was the influence of politics on judicial decision making in the Supreme Court of Ghana.

For this purpose, Mr Atuguba examined 78 judgments by 39 Justices of the Supreme Court (including six Chief Justices) over the first twenty-five years of Ghana's Fourth Republic, from 1993 to 2018, in political cases, while cross-matc...