Former Director of the Ghana School of Law, Kwaku Ansa-Asare, has described the suspended Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo’s legal challenge against her removal process as “a very unwise step.”
His comments follow the Chief Justice’s recent suit filed at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 21, seeking an interlocutory injunction to halt the proceedings of a committee established by President John Mahama to investigate petitions calling for her removal from office.
The suit also requests that Justices Gabriel Pwamang and Samuel Kwame Adibu-Asiedu be barred from participating in the committee’s deliberations, citing concerns about their impartiality.
The application also seeks to restrain the entire committee, including the two justices, former Auditor-General Daniel Yao Domelevo, Major Flora Bazwaanura Dalugo, and Professor James Sefah Dzisah, from continuing with proceedings.
Speaking on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey, Mr. Ansa-Asare criticized the move, suggesting that the Chief Justice may have fallen into a political trap.
He further argued that the decision to resort to the courts, rather than seeking internal counsel, was a strategic misstep:
Mr. Ansa-Asare warned that the legal action could do irreversible harm to the Chief Justice’s standing and credibility within the judiciary.
He said, “A very unwise step that she has taken. Now, if indeed the executive had a mind, bringing her out, from the very moment the Mahama administration came into power, she would have considered that as a trap. Now she has fallen into the trap, and by doing it, she has muddied the water. She cannot come out of that. The poor strategic move is on advice; whoever advised her has closed the door. I don’t think that she can ever enter from there.”
“I would say that she should have sought wise counsel from the Judicial Council itself. Because, as I said Yesterday, the Judicial Council exists to protect her and make sure that she behaves herself. This behavior is not in consonance with the aims and objectives of the creation of the Judicial Council. And this must be a lesson for all the justices of the superior court. It is not everything that you rush to the court. Whoever advised her has done her an irreparable harm to which is not in her interest.”
Justice Torkornoo is facing three separate petitions for her removal from office. The committee is expected to investigate the allegations and present findings that will determine her future as Chief Justice
