Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana, Her Ladyship Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, has described the ongoing proceedings initiated against her and the Pwamang Commission as a blatant mockery of justice and a calculated effort to remove her from office unjustly.
In a supplementary affidavit filed at the Supreme Court registry in support of a motion for an interlocutory injunction, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo expressed grave concern over what she termed persistent violations of her constitutional rights and a sustained assault on judicial independence.
Violation of safeguards
Justice Torkornoo, who filed the motion on May 21, 2025, against the Attorney-General and five other respondents including two sitting Justices of the Supreme Court — contends that the committee set up by the President to probe petitions against her is conducting its work in violation of basic legal and constitutional safeguards.
According to her, “the whole proceedings initiated against me are a mockery of justice and a ruse to unjustifiably remove me from office as the Chief Justice.” She accused the committee of desecrating her right to a fair trial and subjecting her to “inhuman and degrading treatment, of a kind not meted out even to persons on trial for treason.”
No specific allegations
The Chief Justice revealed that despite formally notifying the committee on May 22, 2025, of her pending legal action and the application for injunction before the Supreme Court, the committee expressed its intent to proceed with the inquiry. “To date,” she said, “I have not been informed of the specific allegations or the basis for the determination of a prima facie case against me.”
She further lamented the committee’s refusal to recognize her counsel during a previous sitting on May 19, simply because she was not physically present. According to her, this same counsel had been served with a hearing notice by the committee just a day earlier.
More troubling, Justice Torkornoo noted, was the decision of the committee to exclude the petitioners from testifying in person, instead opting to call other witnesses on their behalf — a move she decried as “completely offensive to known rules of procedure regulating committees or commissions of inquiry.”
Degrading
The Chief Justice also described her treatment at the hearings as degrading. She recounted that her husband and children were denied entry into the hearing room, and both she and her lawyers were subjected to body searches and barred from accessing their phones and laptops, while petitioners’ lawyers faced no such restrictions.
The hearing venue, she added, being held at a high-security zone in Osu’s Castle area rather than a judicial facility, was unprecedented for Article 146 proceedings and indicative of an intent to subject her to mental torture.
In her affidavit, Justice Torkornoo pleaded with the Supreme Court to intervene by granting an injunction to halt the proceedings, warning that failure to do so could have far-reaching implications for the independence and security of tenure of members of the judiciary.
“I respectfully pray for this Honourable Court’s intervention… to prevent the assault on judicial independence and protect the security of tenure of the Chief Justice and Justices of the Superior Courts of Judicature at play in the instant case,” she stated in her affidavit.
The suit lists the Attorney-General, Justices Gabriel Pwamang and Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu, former Auditor-General Daniel Yao Domelevo, Major Flora Banaanura Dalugo, and Professor James Sefah Dzisah as respondents.
Background
Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo was suspended from office by the President of the Republic, John Dramani Mahama, on Tuesday (22 April 2025).
The president’s actions, which are said to be grounded in Article 146 (10) of the 1992 constitution, were primarily inspired by three petitions that the president received seeking the removal of the Chief Justice from office.
A group calling itself Shining Stars of Ghana submitted the first petition to the president on 14 February 2025. Kingsley Agyei, who describes himself as the chairman and convenor of the Shining Stars of Ghana, signed the petition.
The second petition, presented to the president by Daniel Ofori, is dated Monday, March 17, 2025. The petitioner essentially states 21 allegations of misbehaviour and four allegations of incompetence, all of which relate to the Chief Justice’s discharge of her administrative roles and functions as head of the judiciary.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ayamga Yakubu Akolgo (Esq), a senior police officer in the Ghana Police Service stationed at the National Police Headquarters in Accra, is the third and final petitioner to submit a petition to the president for the removal of the Chief Justice from office. Akolgo’s submission was also made on 14 February 2025.
Discussion about this post