Blessed are the remorseful, for they shall receive pardon?
I have been thinking hard about the release of the Montie three. I don’t know them. I hold nothing against them. But I just know that there is certainly something patently wrong about the grant of the remission.
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It is nothing but shameful. It is in fact a boost for impunity. It is a veiled thumb up for a wrongful act. It is a pat on the back of those who made very despicable and disparaging comments about the Chief Justice and some other justices of the Supreme Court.
It is a green light for die-hard party activist to do as they please. The grant of the pardon is a sign of an unwavering guarantee issued by government to its supporters.
It is a political insurance with the President as the underwriter.
And lest we forget, the trio, on a day commemorating the gruesome killing of some judges chose to issue threats of death and harm to the Chief Justice and other justices of the Supreme Court.
Believe me, we have not seen the last of this. We would certainly be confronted with a similar scenario some time soon – probably with different actors. And we would not be outraged anymore because President Mahama has blazed the trail.
Clearly, the trio were not ordinary. They were proud party operatives. Their beloved party could not afford to throw them under the bus.
Enough has been said of how remorseful the three persons are. A minister of state has even talked of how sad the trio were in prison.
The question many asked was “who would be happy behind bars or in jail?”
The press release announcing the grant of the remission of sentence to the three contemnors noted that “the decision of the President to remit their sentences on compassionate grounds follows a petition submitted to him by the contemnors appealing to the President to exercise his prerogative of mercy even as they continue to express deep remorse and regret for the unacceptable statements they made against the Judiciary.”
I am unable to judge the sincerity of their remorse and deep regret. And it must be left there. But I am certain that what they said must have been premeditated.
The test of remorse is not so much about how they would have felt in jail as it is about how they felt about their intended actions at the time when they had all the liberties in the world.
The pardon only provided them with the opportunity to escape responsibility for their conduct – kind courtesy the President of the Republic.
The interesting part of the statement is the part where the Minister of Communication takes the opportunity to remind Ghanaians of the need to respect institutions of state and exercise freedom of speech responsibly mindful of the need to preserve peace and national unity.
The minister should be reminded that words alone don’t matter. In the seminal political philosophy work “ The Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes noted that, “covenants without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.”
Words and rhetoric are of no value at all. To put it bluntly, words in and of themselves are useless. Words only have value when they are backed by concrete and decisive actions.
My attitude to the statement is this: Don’t remind me of the need to respect institutions of state. Rather show me through your deed and actions of the steps you have taken to protect the institutions of state in the face of clear and flagrant violations.
Don’t tell me to exercise my freedom of speech responsibly when you literally act otherwise - snatching convicted individuals from the grips of the law just because you can.
Actions speak louder than words. It is a truism and would always be. Don’t remind me of the use of intemperate language when you yourself create the right conditions for the use of intemperate language. There should be no pretence about this.
Throughout our history, we have had different shades of disrespect and intolerance hauled at the Judiciary. And it keeps getting better with the years.
I agree with those who say that the decision of the President to grant remission of sentence to the Montie 3 is one of the worst decisions ever taken since independence.
And it is important that we mark that date in the diaries of our collective memories. That once upon a time, persons flying on the wings of the government of the day attempted to stab the Judiciary in the side; and they literally walked away under the pretext that they were very remorseful of their actions.
Imagine if someone had stood on some platform and issued death threats to ministers of state or even the President. Would pleas of remorse be sufficient?