Ghana’s Tribunals Bill: A Return to PNDC Justice in 2026
By A Concerned Ghanaian · 19 July 2026 · Politics
Ghana, in the year 2026, has decided to engage in a spirited, time traveling argument over the Tribunals Bill, a legislative relic so nostalgically crafted it could qualify for heritage status. Yes, indeed, we are attempting to resurrect the legal fashion trends of 1982, shoulder pads and all.
The sales pitch is simple enough. Our policymakers insist these tribunals will decongest the courts, allowing us to swiftly discipline tax evaders, customs offenders, and galamsey practitioners. A noble mission, except judicial data shows these offenses barely make a dent in the court docket. Deploying tribunals for this purpose is like buying an entirely new wardrobe because two buttons came loose. It is dramatic, expensive, and solves absolutely nothing.
And then there is the unmistakable aroma wafting from the bill, pure, unfiltered PNDC vintage. You will recall how the Provisional National Defence Council built a parallel justice system precisely because the military government wanted its own way. They had no patience for the slow, deliberate grind of the traditional courts. The tribunals were engineered as a fast track mechanism, a place where the executive could act decisively without waiting for justice to take its usual, measured stroll. Popular participation was weaponized with trade union enthusiasm, and the rules of evidence were treated more like polite suggestions. And truly, you would think that a country with this revolutionary history, a country that once learned the hard way what parallel courts can become, would not even entertain the idea of tribunals again. Yet here we are. Section 4 of this new bill attempts to carve out an independent tribunal system that looks suspiciously like a modern reboot of that old parallel structure, quietly nibbling away at the Chief Justice’s supervisory authority.
What makes this even more theatrical is that our leaders did not need to search far for guidance, they simply chose to ignore it. Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh’s committee spelled it out plainly: the tribunals have outlived their usefulness and should be abolished. A decade earlier, the 2012 Constitution Review Commission under President Atta Mills reached the exact same conclusion, warning that the tribunal system undermines the unified architecture of the 1992 Constitution.
Yet here we stand. Two heavyweight, state funded expert committees tell us to bury the tribunal system, and the state responds by exhuming it, polishing it, and offering it a promotion. We seem to have developed a national habit of hiring world class mechanics to diagnose our car, only to ignore their advice and attempt driving backward down the motorway with confidence and patriotic gusto.
What makes the whole spectacle even more baffling is that you would think, in 2026, our lawmakers might pause and consider how to use technology to make our courts more efficient. Digitized filings, automated case tracking, virtual hearings, AI assisted scheduling, the entire buffet of modern tools. But instead of embracing the future, they appear determined to reenact a legal drama from the early eighties, complete with all the institutional choreography that made that era memorable.
The fear today, Osagyefo, is executive capture, the painfully predictable outcome of building a court system outside the fortified walls of the judiciary. Once you create a legal side door, politicians will inevitably find the keys. What we need now is forward looking statecraft, not the recycling of structural relics from our more chaotic chapters.
So long,
Ato_KD