Lawyer for the Member of Parliament (MP) for Old Tafo, Vincent Assafuah, who has filed a suit at the Supreme Court; challenging the processes used to handle the petitions for the removal of the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Gertrude Torkornoo, has described as a charade the manner in which the President and the Council of State have handled the situation.
Lawyer Godfred Dame, the immediate past Attorney-General, in a Supplementary Affidavit In Support Of Application For Interlocutory Injunction, deposed by Stephen Yankey, on behalf of the MP, who is currently out of the country, stated, “That the manner in which the President and the Council of State have handled the three petitions against the President confirms that the purported “article 146 proceedings” instituted against the Chief Justice are a charade, a farce and merely choreographed to achieve the declared intention of the Government and associates of the current Government to remove the Chief Justice at all costs.”
He continued “…I am advised by counsel and verily believe same to be true that the manner in which the removal of the Chief Justice is being orchestrated, as shown above, represents the biggest assault on the independence of the Judiciary ever witnessed in the history of constitutional rule in Ghana, and should not be countenanced by this Honourable Court.”
Lawyer Vincent Assafuah’s contention is against the backdrop that President Mahama had on many occasions attacked the Supreme Court, of which the current Chief Justice has at all material times been part, and expressed his intention to appoint a Chief Justice who will not be “partisan”.
Other appointees of the President, including the Deputy Director of Operations at the Office of the President and Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, according to Plaintiff Vincent Assafuah, have in very recent times, expressed a view on the petitions purportedly presented against the Chief Justice and indicated that she will surely be removed.
The foregoing, amongst other, Lawyer Dame argued, demonstrates that the article 146 proceedings initiated against the Chief Justice are a ruse to give effect to the avowed determination of the current Government to unconstitutionally remove the Chief Justice from office, and buttressed the urgent need “for this Honourable Court’s intervention by the grant of an injunction to protect the hallowed principles of judicial independence and security of tenure of the Chief Justice at play in the instant case.”
Honourable Vincent Assafuah averred in the Affidavit that it is a fit and proper occasion for the Supreme Court to exercise its jurisdiction by granting an interlocutory injunction in terms prayed for in the motion paper.
Recall that following the announcement by the Minister for Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, that the three petitions have been forwarded to the Council of State in line with Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution, the Tafo MP sued government.
The plaintiff is praying the Court for a declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of articles 146(1),(2), (4)(6) and (7), 23, 57(3) and 296 of the Constitution, the President is mandated to notify the Chief Justice about a petition for the removal of the Chief Justice and obtain his or her comments and responses to the content of such petition before referring the petition to the Council of State or commencing the consultation processes with the Council of State for the removal of the Chief Justice.
Additionally, he is praying for a declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of articles 146(1), (2), (4),(6) and (7), 23 and 296 of the Constitution, a failure by the President to notify the Chief Justice and obtain his or her comments and responses to a petition for the removal of the Chief Justice before triggering the consultation process with the Council of State constitutes a violation of article 146(6) as well as the constitutional protection of the security of tenure of the Chief Justice who is a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature stipulated in article 146(1) of the Constitution.
Stay tuned.