MP goes to SC …challenges action to remove CJ

 The Member of Parliament (MP) for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, has filed a suit at the Supreme Court (SC), challenging the constitutionality of the peti­tion seeking the removal of the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Araba Sackey Torkonoo, from office.

The MP contends that President John Dramani Maha­ma, who received the petition from three Ghanaians, and had already forwarded it to the Council of State for advice, was mandated to notify the Chief Justice about the petition for her removal and obtain her response before referring it to the Council of State.

Mr Assafuah joined the Attorney-General (A-G) and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Akurutinga Ayine, the govern­ment’s principal legal advisor, to the suit as a defendant.

The MP is praying the SC 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 was 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.

Mr Assafuah also stated that 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.

The MP of Old Tafo, in the Ashanti region, is further seeking a declaration that failure by the President to notify the Chief Justice and obtain her comments and responses to a petition for the removal of the Chief Justice before triggering the process for her removal, constitutes a vio­lation of the fundamental right to a fair hearing contained in articles 23 and 296, and renders the consultation processes for the removal of the Chief Justice initiated by the President null, void and of no effect.

Mr Assafuah urged the court any other order as it seems fit.

Since the coming into force of the 1992 Constitution, no pe­tition for the removal of previous Chief Justices were successful.

Justice Sir Ako Korsah was the first Chief Justice to be sacked by Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

 BY MALIK SULLEMANA