CHIEF JUSTICE GERTRUDE TORKORNOO INGRATIATINGLY CRIES FOR HELP FROM SUPREME COURT COLLEAGUES
CHIEF JUSTICE GERTRUDE TORKORNOO INGRATIATINGLY CRIES FOR HELP FROM SUPREME COURT COLLEAGUES.
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
The Chief Justice of Ghana, Mrs. Gertrude Torkornoo, has since the initiation of the petitions to remove her from office thrown away all the decorum and respect demanded of her high office and started behaving in a childlike manner of crying, ingratiating, begging and appealing to the emotions and sympathies of her colleagues in the Supreme Court with a spurious, vexatious and frivolous supplementary affidavit supporting her application for interim injunction making the rounds in the media.
The Supreme Court has decided that proceedings initiated by removal petitions of Superior Court Justices under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution must be heard in camera and that is the Constitution and law of Ghana until the same Court decides in the future to depart from its own previous decisions. Three applications for interlocutory injunction to restrain the performance of public functions by public officers enjoined by the Constitution under Article 146 were dismissed by the Supreme Court as being unmeritorious, the last two being on the same day, 21 May 2025.
As though already choreographed and agreed by a scripted plan, after the Supreme Court dismissed the two interim applications, the Chief Justice herself on the same day, 21 May 2025 at 3:00 pm commenced an action by writ asserting her right to a public hearing, an order setting aside the warrant for her suspension as the Chief Justice issued by the President, amongst other reliefs. The writ was accompanied by an application for interim injunction for orders restraining all the members of the committee appointed to hear her petition from doing so and also an order suspending the operation of the warrant for her suspension in the performance of the duties of her office as Chief Justice issued by the President under Article 146 (10) of the Constitution pending the hearing and determination of her action. The Writ without the Statement of the Plaintiff’s Case, and motion for interim injunction without the accompanying affidavit were instantly published in the media.
In the meantime, the Supreme Court had in an earlier ruling on an application for interlocutory injunction or the suspension of the constitutional functions of the President under Article 146 of the Constitution in the case of Vincent Assafuah v Attorney-General, Writ No. J1/18/2025, Supreme Court, 6 May 2025 (Unreported) dismissed the application, stating inter alia that:
“I am of the view that, this is not one of the exceptional situations where the court should be swayed to injunct or suspend the constitutional functions of the President of the Republic or any constitutional body or committee from the performance of their constitutional or other statutory functions.”
The Chief Justice while her action filed on 21 May 2025 was pending before the Court decided without leave of the Court to file a supplementary affidavit on 26 May 2025 at 3:00 pm containing scandalous and vexatious materials not based on facts which she knew ought not to form the subject matter of an affidavit to a court of law which found its way into the media for sensational coverage to incite the court and the public for sympathy to support her application for injunction.
The Chief Justice was by her Writ trying to persuade the Supreme Court to overrule three of its own previous decisions and to enable her to be given a public hearing as the respondent to the petitions but disposed to matters in her supplementary affidavit which are inconsistent with the existing binding decisions of the Court categorically determining that petitions for the removal of Superior Court Justices must be heard in camera in accordance with Article 146(8) of the Constitution.
For example, and firstly, the Chief Justice’s paragraphs numbered 6 to 11 of her supplementary affidavit dealt with matters that allegedly took place at the in camera proceedings of the committee as mandated under Article 146 (8) of the Constitution and decided upon by the Supreme Court in Dery v Attorney-General and other previous decisions of the same court as not disclosable to the public until after the termination of the proceedings initiated by the petition. She knew they are ethically and professionally prohibited from being made public under the ruse of an affidavit but she still did so in a fit of childlike indiscretion to court public support.
Secondly, the paragraph numbered 12 of the supplementary affidavit was needless except to play to the emotions of citizens and sidestep the complaints contained in the petitions for which the hearing is taking place. The Chief Justice knows as a matter of fact that when cases are heard in camera husbands and children of parties are not allowed into the hearing to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of the proceedings enjoined to be held in camera. What she knowingly omitted to disclose to the public was whether the petitioners, their witnesses, and their lawyers were also the subject of searches before entering the forum for the hearing.
Thirdly, the paragraph numbered 13 of her supplementary affidavit conveniently did not mention that all the Article 146 proceedings she referred to were conducted by the committees appointed by the Chief Justice and therefore the Chief Justice at the time had to decide the venue for the hearing to be within the premises of her office. In the pending petitions to remove the Chief Justice from office, the responsibility to appoint the committee in the removal process has been apportioned by the Constitution to the President who is obliged to provide the forum for the investigation.
Finally, the Chief Justice is the head of the judicial arm of government and I am surprised that the paragraphs numbered 14 and 15 of her supplementary affidavit contains a childlike ingratiating cry, begging and appeals to the emotions of the Court and the general public without any scintilla of supporting facts. It is a patent insult to the citizens exercising their constitutional rights under 146 to petition for the removal of the Chief Justice from office. How can a Chief Justice of Ghana state on oath without proof that: “.... whole proceedings initiated against me are a mockery of justice and a ruse to unjustifiably remove me from office as Chief Justice.” This is clearly a hymn coming from a political party playbook which has been played since the petitions were submitted to the President and it is a shame that a sitting Chief Justice being defended by the immediate past Attorney-General has the indiscretion to repeat such banal political platitudes without proof on oath.
Hopefully, the Court will rise above such childlike begging, appeals, and ingratiating conduct from the Chief Justice by refusing leave to admit her supplementary affidavit in its entirety or strike out the paragraphs numbered 6 to 15 of the supplementary affidavit inclusive as being frivolous, vexatious, scandalous, and an abuse of the process of the Court.
The 1992 Constitution prohibits the treatment of any citizen in a manner that constitutes a mockery of justice and using ruses in abuse of power under the Constitution to satisfy parochial political interests. Every patriot has a duty to prevent such abuse of power when the proponents of such abuse of constitutional power produce concrete facts and evidence to support their claims. I have heard political conjecture upon political conjecture since the initiation of the removal petitions against the Chief Justice from the minority in Parliament, the NPP, and other persons supporting the Chief Justice without any iota of fact and evidence to support them. Let the evidence be produced that the petitioners were suborned to submit the petitions for political reasons and I will be fighting in the corner of the Chief Justice against such provable injustice. That is the only way I can be recruited onto her cause as a citizen vigilante. Until then, all patriots have a duty to uphold the Constitution no matter whose ass is gored.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
(Yesterday’s Man)
27 May 2025