Senior Communicator for the Movement for Change, Solomon Owusu, has fiercely opposed a proposal to cap the number of Supreme Court Justices at 20, calling it excessive and a distraction from deeper judicial reforms.
His comments come in response to remarks made by Supreme Court nominee Justice Philip Bright Mensah during his vetting on Tuesday, June 17. Justice Mensah had argued that the Supreme Court’s wide jurisdiction demands a larger bench to handle the growing volume of cases.
But Owusu isn’t buying it.
“20 is too much for this country, people are missing the point,” he declared on TV3’s New Day on Wednesday, June 18. “Why do we have a lot of faces at the Supreme Court? It is because we have very weak rulings coming from the lower courts.”
According to him, the real issue lies in the quality of judgments delivered at the High Court and Appeals Court levels. He believes that poor decisions at those levels are what push more cases to the Supreme Court, overwhelming the apex bench.
“The Supreme Court is an appellate body, it is a court that reviews decisions of the lower courts,” Owusu explained. “So if you have strong, honest, patriotic and deep-think Judges at the High Court level whose judgement will stand the test of time, there will not be any need for most of these cases to travel to the Supreme Court.”
He urged the judiciary to focus on attracting “the best brains” to the lower courts, arguing that empowering those judges would reduce the pressure on the Supreme Court and eliminate the need for such a large bench.
“To deal with it, let’s go back and look at the circumstances—how we can attract the best brains to the High Court and the Appeals Court so that they can do what we call good judgement,” he said.
The debate over the size of the Supreme Court has intensified in recent years. Between 2017 and 2024, former President Akufo-Addo appointed more than 15 Justices to the apex court, sparking criticism from the then-opposition NDC over what they saw as court-packing.
Now, President Mahama has nominated seven more Justices, who are awaiting parliamentary approval. If confirmed, the number of Supreme Court Judges will rise to 20—fueling fresh concerns about the size and independence of the judiciary.
As the debate rages on, Solomon Owusu’s fiery remarks have added a new layer to the conversation, challenging the very foundation of the proposal and calling for a bottom-up approach to judicial reform
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