The Catholic Bishops Conference has charged government to repatriate the two GITMO detainees to the United States following the Supreme Court’s declaration as “unconstitutional” their admission into the country during the Mahama administration.
A seven-member Supreme Court panel presided over by Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo by six to one (6 -1) majority decision Thursday June 22, 2017 said the two are illegally in the country since the then government allowed them into the country without prior approval by Parliament.
The consequential order of the court is that government should within three months subject the agreement to parliamentary consideration and approval and in default return the two Gitmo detainees.
The order by the Apex court was necessitated by a suit brought against the Attorney General and Minister of Justice as well as the Minister of Interior by two Ghanaian citizens—Margaret Bamful and Henry Nana Boakye last year.
Government said in the wake of the order that it has taken steps to get parliamentary approval to ratify the illegal stay of the two.
According to the Minister of Information, government will under the supervision of the security agencies take prompt steps to address the consequential orders from the Apex Court.
The Bishops’ Conference, however, disagreed with the steps taken by government with its president Reverend Philip Naameh urging immediate repatriation of the two.
“Once it [Supreme Court] makes provision for the detainees to be taken back to the country I will support that because there might have been a reason why US did not want the people to come back to the US, so if the ruling of the Supreme Court is that either it goes back to Parliament so that it is legalized or the people are taken to the US.
“I will think that it is the most logical thing because we were saying we did not see that it was legal enough and it has been confirmed by the Supreme Court ruling and therefore if they will take them back to the US, we will have no issue with that,” he said in a recent interview on Accra-based Citi FM.
