A judicial review plea submitted by suspended Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo was denied by the Human Rights Division of the High Court in Accra, which determined that the case amounted to an abuse of court procedure and that the court lacked authority to consider it.
Justice Kwame Amoako’s decision ends the suspended Chief Justice’s second legal appeal to the continuing proceedings for her possible removal from office under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution.
This judicial review comes after Justice Torkonoo filed a previous, still-pending constitutional interpretation case at the Supreme Court. Her request for an injunction to stop the impeachment process while the Supreme Court case was being heard, however, was already denied.
The judicial review application, which was filed on June 9, 2025, sought nine reliefs, including several statements that the Article 146 commission that was looking into her had broken the law.
In addition, the Chief Justice asked the court to stop the committee’s work and forbid it from advancing until verified copies of the petitions and answers were provided.
Justice Amoako divided the reliefs into two categories in his decision: those denied for lack of jurisdiction and those denied as an abuse of the legal system.
The court concluded that a number of the Chief Justice’s arguments had previously been heard by the Supreme Court in the case involving constitutional interpretation. These include:
1. Allegations that the committee was proceeding unlawfully due to the Registry’s failure to provide authenticated petitions and responses;
2. A request to prohibit the committee from continuing its work without those authenticated documents;
3. Claims that the committee was wrongfully conducting adversarial proceedings, rather than an impartial inquiry;
4. Allegations that the committee’s composition was unlawful.
While the Supreme Court is actively considering these concerns, Justice Amoako ruled that re-litigating them at the High Court would constitute duplicative litigation and an abuse of the legal system.
Jurisdictional grounds led to the dismissal of the remaining remedies. Included were:
1. Requests to nullify the committee’s sittings on the basis that the Chief Justice was denied a fair hearing;
2. Allegations that her legal team was prevented from representing her during the proceedings;
3. Claims of procedural breaches of the Constitution and the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules;
4. An application for an order of certiorari to quash the committee’s proceedings.
The court ruled that it was unable to investigate these issues since they are directly linked to the Article 146 committee’s deliberations, which are protected from outside scrutiny and are to be held in camera under Article 146(8) of the Constitution.
Source: newsthemegh.com