CJ dealt another removal injunction blow

Ghana’s suspended Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornor, has suffered yet another defeat in her attempt to halt the proceedings by the five-member committee set up to probe the three petitions seeking her removal. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed her injunction application against the committee, according to My Joy Online. This ruling was delivered a few hours after her supplementary affidavit was also struck out unanimously by the court. On 21 May, Torkornoo filed an application at the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the committee set up by President John Mahama to investigate petitions seeking her removal from office. In the suit, she requested an interlocutory injunction to halt all proceedings of the committee, pending the final determination of the case. The application also sought to bar Justices Pwamang and Adibu-Asiedu from presiding or participating in any deliberations of the committee. Further, the Chief Justice also asked the court to suspend the operation of the warrant for her suspension issued by the President until a final determination is made on the matter. Other legal actions taken by some individuals and a group of people to halt the process have also been dismissed by the Supreme Court.

Full My Joy Online report

Torkornoo filed a damning supplementary affidavit at the Supreme Court last Monday linked to her impeachment proceedings, reports My Joy Online. She described her treatment in the ongoing impeachment inquiry as ‘a mockery of justice, an assault on judicial independence, and worse than the treatment meted out to persons accused of treason’. Torkornoo said the process she’s being subjected to constitutes ‘a complete desecration of my basic constitutional rights to a fair trial, violation of my dignity and subjection to inhuman and degrading treatment…’ The affidavit, filed in support of her motion for an interlocutory injunction to halt the proceedings, outlined a series of alarming developments since she first took legal action on 21 May. She revealed that despite informing the committee of the suit she filed at the Supreme Court and providing copies of the processes, the committee proceeded with the inquiry the very next day. Torkornoo described what she views as a calculated series of violations. She recounted how, on 15 May, her lawyer appeared before the committee in her absence, only to be ignored and sidelined by the same committee that had served him with hearing notices a day earlier. 

Even more troubling, according to her affidavit, was the committee’s decision to allow the petitioners to call third-party witnesses instead of testifying themselves. She argued that this undermined the principle of direct accountability and flies in the face of rules that require petitioners to testify under oath and be subjected to cross-examination. But the procedural irregularities are not the only focus of her protest. Torkornoo spoke of deeply personal humiliations – body searches, denial of access to phones and laptops for herself and her legal team, while allowing full access to petitioners’ counsel. Her husband and children, she added, were barred from entering the hearing room. She also denounced the venue of the hearings – the Osu Castle, a high-security zone – as intentionally intimidating. ‘All Article 146 proceedings, with the exception of the one I am being subjected to, have been held in a judicial facility. The location of proceedings affecting me in a cordoned high-security facility boggles the mind,’ she wrote. The Chief Justice warned that what is playing out is not just a personal attack but an institutional crisis, according to My Joy Online. In her plea, she argues that this case is not merely about her survival in office, but about protecting the constitutional independence and security of tenure for all judges of the superior courts.

Full My Joy Online report