Habemus CJ!
In the wake of the lingering unease that followed the removal of the former Chief Justice, the nation has finally been offered a moment of institutional stillness. Parliament has now approved Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie as the new Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana, a role he had carried in an acting capacity while the country observed with a mixture of hope, frustration, and weary anticipation. His formal swearing in on Monday the 17th November, 2025 arrives at a time when Ghana is longing for clarity and moral direction within its justice system, especially after months marked by political tension, public speculation, and the unsettling awareness that even the judiciary can be shaken at its foundation. The nation looks to him now not only as an administrator of the courts but as a symbol of renewed trust in the rule of law and as a moral compass at a moment when the country is wrestling with profound questions about crime, punishment, and the value of human life.
This reflection therefore comes at no more fitting a time than now. As the country entrusts a new Chief Justice with the responsibility of restoring confidence in the machinery of justice, we must pause and examine whether our legal choices reflect the seriousness of the wounds that violence continues to inflict upon our people. We must ask whether our recent reforms have protected the vulnerable or simply softened the law at a time when brutality has grown more calculated, more frequent, and more indifferent to the humanity of its victims. Ghana stands at a moment of judicial renewal, and that renewal requires not only structural strengthening but moral clarity. It demands that we reconsider the abolition of the death penalty, question its practical and ethical implications, and interrogate whether the decision truly reflects the nation’s commitment to justice, order, and the protection of life.
Sometimes a single headline is enough to wound the conscience of a nation. Not long ago, Ghanaians awakened to the news that a young uniformed officer had vanished after travelling to resolve a financial dispute with a man he trusted. Days later, his remains were discovered, his body burnt in an attempt to erase every trace of his existence. In another part of the country, a mother searched for her daughter who never returned home from school, only to learn that the child had been subjected to severe sexual violence, her innocence stolen and her future irreparably scarred. Elsewhere, an ordinary woman, a mother and a worker, simply disappeared, later discovered to have been murdered by her own husband who dissolved her body in chemicals in a calculated bid to conceal his crime. These are not distant stories. They are the painful rhythm that has become familiar to our news cycles, reminders that violence continues to spread through our communities even as we pride ourselves on peace.
Each time such tragedies occur, the public responds with grief, outrage, prayers, statements, and vigils. Yet as the days pass, the noise fades, and the survivors are left to navigate a justice system that moves with slow and fragile steps. Meanwhile, the accused persons are held in custody, nourished, clothed, and medically supported by the very State whose laws they violated. They live, while their victims do not. Justice feels delayed, and in too many cases, justice never fully arrives.
It did not always feel this way. Until July 2023, the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), recognised that certain crimes are so morally corrosive and so destructive of the human spirit that they constitute an assault on the very fabric of society. For such acts, including murder, treason, genocide, piracy, and aggravated violence, the law reserved the death penalty. It was rarely enforced but its presence in the law signified something important. It declared that the deliberate taking of life has a consequence equal in gravity to the harm inflicted. It affirmed that a society that values life must also take seriously the responsibility to punish those who destroy it.
This changed when Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes, replacing it with life imprisonment. International partners commended Ghana as a shining example of modern human-rights leadership, and the global community celebrated the country’s alignment with abolitionist values. Beneath that global applause, however, lay a quiet unease among ordinary Ghanaians who had seen too many cases drag endlessly through the courts, too many violent offenders live comfortably under State care, and too many grieving families wait for justice that never came. Their discomfort arose not from vengeance but from a deep-seated awareness that mercy without consequence distorts the meaning of justice.
For those of us grounded in Christian faith, this tension is not merely legal but profoundly moral. Scripture teaches the sanctity of life, yet it also teaches accountability. In Genesis, the taking of a human life is treated as an affront to the divine image. In Romans, the governing authority is described as an instrument of justice, bearing the sword as a symbol of legitimate punishment. The cross fulfilled justice; it did not nullify it. Mercy in Christian theology is meaningful precisely because justice first acknowledges the seriousness of wrongdoing. To forgive does not mean to erase consequence. To show compassion does not mean to protect impunity.
It was during a recent lecture on International Human Rights Law that I raised this very issue, asking whether the abolition of the death penalty truly reflects a fair interpretation of human rights when victims suffer the gravest violations imaginable. The lecturer explained that the international human rights community applauded Ghana’s decision because human rights are understood as indivisible and universal, and the State cannot violate one person’s right to life while seeking to uphold another person’s right to justice. It is a thoughtful perspective and I appreciate the moral consistency that underpins it. On the other hand, I also believe that this framework sometimes overlooks the reality that the victims of murder and sexual violence also possessed rights that were not merely infringed but extinguished beyond repair.
The right to life of the murdered citizen was not interrupted; it was annihilated. The right to dignity of the violated child was not bruised; it was shattered. When the law responds with partial consequences to absolute violations, society must ask whether we have honoured human rights or simply chosen the easier form of compassion. Human rights are universal, but they are not without limits, and every functional legal system understands that certain rights may be restricted to protect the community. If the sanctity of life is genuine, then it must acknowledge that those who deliberately destroy it cannot insist upon the unqualified protection they denied to others.
Ghana now responds to the ultimate crime with the ultimate preservation of the offender’s life. Life imprisonment is the ceiling, not the starting point. Yet our prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, and strained. Our forensic systems remain limited. Our prosecutorial pathways move slowly. Within such a weakened system, life imprisonment becomes not a profound moral statement but a logistical burden, one that requires taxpayers to sustain individuals who have committed the most unspeakable acts. Meanwhile, families bear emotional wounds that reshape their lives forever, with no sense of closure or proportionate justice.
The truth is difficult yet undeniable. The current system creates an imbalance that is neither moral nor sustainable. Justice cannot mean that the innocent suffer more deeply than the guilty. It cannot mean that the survivor endures lifelong trauma while the perpetrator receives lifelong care.
Consider again the case of the young Immigration Officer whose killers attempted to erase every trace of his body. During a recent court appearance, the family could no longer contain their grief and rage, confronting the accused in an outburst fuelled by months of frustration, adjournments, and procedural stagnation. Their pain reflects a wider national sentiment. When time becomes the ally of crime, when justice loses its urgency, and when the law protects those who destroyed life more than those who mourn it, society begins to unravel.
The unresolved murder of journalist Ahmed Hussein Suale demonstrates this even more clearly. After more than six years, justice remains elusive. Files travel between institutions, advice is delayed, and the nation watches as inertia threatens to overwrite memory. The victims of violence in Ghana do not simply need compassion; they need consequence.
Sexual violence, too, continues to scar the nation. Too many cases languish, too many offenders receive sentences that fail to reflect the magnitude of their actions, and too many survivors are left to rebuild their lives with little support. For crimes of such magnitude, the law must speak with gravity. Our criminal statute must be strengthened to recognise the depth of harm that sexual violence inflicts on the body, the mind, and the soul. Longer minimum sentences, stricter enforcement structures, and mandatory post appeal reviews are essential. And in narrowly defined circumstances involving serial offenders or those who violate minors, judicially authorised chemical castration or sterilisation must remain an available option. These measures must be constitutional, medically supervised, and transparently managed, not as acts of cruelty but as instruments of prevention.
Mercy without consequence is recklessness. Justice without compassion is tyranny. Ghana currently leans toward an imbalance that favours the former at the expense of the vulnerable. A nation that cannot defend its children, protect its women, or safeguard its communities has surrendered part of its moral authority. The rhetoric of progress cannot outweigh the reality of pain. To reinstate capital punishment for a narrow set of crimes is not to regress into brutality but to return to coherence. It is to affirm that the sanctity of life demands seriousness in protecting it, not passivity in the face of its destruction.
As Ghana welcomes a new Chief Justice who must guide the judiciary toward renewal, this is the moment to examine whether abolition has genuinely advanced the cause of justice or simply appeased global sentiment at the expense of national reality. Justice must be compassionate but it must also be proportionate. Mercy must be meaningful but it must never be a refuge for impunity.
The death penalty, when rightly constrained, fairly applied, and reserved only for the most extreme acts of premeditated violence, is not the triumph of vengeance but the defence of virtue. It reminds society that evil has a cost and that justice, when grounded in truth, protects the vulnerable. Without justice, mercy loses its meaning. Without consequence, life itself loses its value.
About the Writer
The writer is a Ghanaian thinker and emerging policy voice with a deep interest in justice, governance, and the moral foundations of national development. With an academic background in the social sciences, public health, and law, she reflects on the intersection between human dignity, public responsibility, and the role of the State in safeguarding the vulnerable. Her work is shaped by a commitment to faith, reason, and the conviction that a just society must balance compassion with consequence, mercy with accountability, and progress with moral clarity.
