The Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, filed a motion for an injunction contesting her suspension and the impeachment proceedings against her, but the Supreme Court rejected certain of her attested affidavits.
A five-member Supreme Court panel ruled today that the affidavit’s depositions included the committee’s investigation of the petition against the Chief Justice, which ought to have been conducted in camera in line with Article 146(8) of the Constitution.
Because the depositions violated Article 146(8) of the Constitution, the court rejected them.
The court, presided over by Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, ruled that the supplemental affidavit was struck out and did not constitute part of the evidence on record.
The court issued the decision following the upholding of Deputy Attorney-General Dr. Justice Srem-Sai’s objection.
An earlier challenge by the Attorney General to the exclusion of members of the committee investigating the Chief Justice from an application for an injunction was overruled by the Supreme Court.
The names of the committee members—Justices Gabriel Pwamang, Samuel Adibu-Asiedu, Daniel Domelevo, Major Flora Bazwaanura Dalugo, and Professor James Sefah Dzisa—were removed from the injunction application submitted by Chief Justice Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, according to a Deputy Attorney-General, Dr. Justice Srem-Sai.
In the injunction motion, Justice Torkornoo is pleading with the court to put a stop to both her suspension and the impeachment process until her writ contesting the constitutionality of the investigation against her is resolved.
Justice Torkornoo had said in her application that the writ would not have any effect on the committee members, according to Justice Srem-Sai, who moved the objection.
Godfred Yeboah Dame, a former A-G and the Chief Justice’s attorney, responded by saying that the reason for withdrawing a party from a lawsuit was not whether the individual will be impacted by the case but rather if he should be a party at all.
He maintained that the committee members are legitimate parties since the applicant, Justice Torkornoo, had requested claims and reliefs against them.
Presided over by Acting Chief Justice Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, a five-member court panel overruled the objection, holding that the Chief Justice’s suggestion that the committee members would not be impacted by the writ was not fatal.
Source: newsthemegh.com