The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has strongly appealed to President John Dramani Mahama to refuse assent to the newly passed Tribunals Bill, 2026.

In a live national broadcast delivered on Sunday, July 19, 2026, Dr Bawumia warned that the legislation threatens to undermine democratic stability, dissolve public trust in the judiciary, and fundamentally alter Ghana’s justice system.

He explicitly called on the President to pause the approval process and switch gears toward broad, inclusive stakeholder consultations before making any definitive changes to the national legal architecture.

The legislative journey of the bill has faced heavy criticism, sparking massive resistance from opposition lawmakers and labor unions. Parliament pushed the bill through by deliberately waiving the mandatory 24-hour statutory cooling period between the consideration stage and its final reading.

Parliamentary majority leaders ultimately voted down intense objections from the Minority and overrode highly publicized protests from Organized Labor.

A primary point of alarm cited by legal critics is a provision that permits regular panels, including individuals who are completely untrained in law, to sit in judgment over complex criminal trials.

Dr. Bawumia cautioned that rushing the bill through based strictly on parliamentary headcount numbers introduces the dark risk of weaponizing the delivery of justice.

He reminded citizens of the historical misuse of regional and public tribunals in Ghana's political past, noting that previous expert reviews, such as the Kwasi Prempeh Constitutional Review Committee, had explicitly recommended abolishing existing parallel tribunal infrastructure.

Rather than enacting a parallel justice system to address court congestion, the NPP leader advocated for modernizing existing infrastructure, expanding courtrooms, increasing the count of qualified judges, and fully digitizing current operational judicial systems.

Addressing President Mahama directly, Dr. Bawumia urged him to leverage his constitutional powers to draft an official invitation for dialogue through the Council of State rather than signing the bill into law.

He emphasized that true justice belongs unconditionally to the Ghanaian public rather than to any singular political party or temporary administration. He proposed that the executive branch immediately convene a comprehensive national dialogue bringing together the Ghana Bar Association, civil society groups, independent legal practitioners, organized labor, and the judiciary to reach a sustainable national consensus.