Manhyia South MP Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah has criticised Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie over remarks comparing Ghana’s current administration with the previous eight years.

Speaking in an interview with Joy News monitored by The Observer Times, the legislator described the Chief Justice’s comments as an “unfortunate indiscretion” and questioned the capacity in which they were made.

“It’s an unfortunate indiscretion on the part of the Chief Justice, extremely unfortunate,” Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah said.

He argued that the controversy should not be assessed solely by the words used, but also by the institutional authority attached to the Chief Justice’s visit to the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF).

According to the MP, the Chief Justice attended the engagement in the official regalia of his office alongside other senior judicial officials, including Supreme Court judges, the Judicial Secretary, the Director of the Law School and the Registrar of the Law School.

“So he went there with the full weight, might, glory, and clothed with the regalia of the Judiciary. And so when you go there in that capacity and you make this comment, it’s very unfortunate,” he said.

Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah maintained that the institutional context gives the remarks greater significance than if they had been made by an individual outside the Judiciary.

He argued that the comments risk undermining the Judiciary’s expected political neutrality, particularly because the Chief Justice made them while performing an official function.

“Look, he has stripped, with the greatest of respect and humility, the Judiciary of the necessary neutrality,” the MP said.

He further questioned the ethical and legal basis for a Chief Justice making comparisons between political administrations, arguing that the officeholder was acting in an official capacity rather than speaking as a private citizen.

“Because when he went there, he didn’t go there as Mr. Paul Baffoe-Bonnie,” Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah said, adding that such comparisons were “so unethical.”

The comments follow Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie’s praise of MIIF and other public institutions during his September 2 visit, when he questioned what Ghana had been doing over the previous eight years.