The Ghana Bar Association has raised concerns regarding the procedure being followed by the Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, in requesting for more judges to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
The association believes that the procedure used by the Chief Justice is not the best.
This comes after the leader of the apex court, Gertrude Torkornoo, proposed five judges to President Akufo-Addo to be nominated as Supreme Court justices, citing the overwhelming number of cases the apex court handles.
The opposition NDC described this move by the CJ as a deliberate collaboration between the Chief Justice and the President to use these judges to shield government wrongdoings and advance their parochial interests.
However, Saviour Kudze, the association’s spokesperson, said that the Chief Justice’s action was irregular, attributing it to an accidental mistake and not something intentional.
“That is not what is normally done. What is done is that the three recommending bodies—the GBA, the Attorney General’s office, and the CJ’s office—would bring various lists to the Judicial Council. They will now send the name and advice to the president.
“The president would now decide whether to appoint everybody else on that list—some of them—or reject everybody there. Just as he doesn’t also have the right to prepare his own list, he has to come back to the judicial council for the process to begin all over.
“I think that it is just a simple mistake, and that is the way I should think because I am not sure that it was intentional. These things sometimes happen,” he said.
The names recommended for nomination to the Supreme Court include Justice Afia Serwaa Asare Botchwey, the presiding judge in the ambulance case involving Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, as well as Justice Cyra Pamela Koranteng, Justice Edward Amoako Asante, Justice Eric Kyei Baffuour, and Justice Angelina Mensah Homiah.