Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo has defended the decision to swiftly address an injunction application filed by MP Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor, aimed at freezing parliament’s confirmation of newly nominated ministers by President Akufo-Addo.
She clarified that the case was deemed ready for hearing as all the necessary procedures had been completed.
Speaking to reporters in Accra on Thursday, April 4, she unveiled new measures to prioritise cases that have fulfilled required processes for swift resolution, even if it means bypassing specified timelines outlined in court rules.
The Chief Justice emphasised that the Attorney-General had filed the necessary documents for the hearing of the case, asserting that the apex court was not in violation of any laws by proceeding with the case.
Furthermore, she advised that lawyers lodging cases at the Supreme Court should anticipate expedited hearings, indicating a commitment to efficient judicial processes.
“Immediately a process is filed, or the date a process is filed you have a maximum of 21 days. Now give or take another two, three days for service, … so the instruction was that, wait for a minimum of 25 days, if no process is filed, then serve hearing notice, so that the court will sit.
“At that time, we’ll know that everybody’s been given all the opportunity given by the rules and they didn’t file their process. So we can deal with the motion on its merits. In this particular case, as soon as the case was filed, the Attorney General filed his response, he filed his affidavit in position, so the case was ripe for hearing.
“We were going to go on Easter break, and the Attorney General wrote and said this is a matter of governance. So could the court issue hearing notice for the case to be heard and the court was going to sit on the Wednesday. And so hearing notices were issued so that the applicant who filed the case himself, who should be interested in his case himself, will come to court, and all the two other respondents will also come to court. So the bailiff went to serve all of them with hearing notice, and when the court sat on that Wednesday, it formed part of our list,” she said.
The Chief Justice said she knew that the applicants, Speaker of Parliament and Attorney General, had all been served.
The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, March 27, unanimously dismissed an application brought forward by South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor.
This application challenged the approval of new ministerial and deputy ministerial nominees. The court deemed the application frivolous and an abuse of the court process.
Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor’s application aimed to halt the vetting process in Parliament until his suit challenging the constitutionality of the President’s decision to reassign Ministers without Parliament’s involvement was resolved.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that the MP’s case lacked direct relevance to the nominees under consideration in Parliament, as it primarily pertained to reassigned Ministers.
Following this, the NDC alleged that this move reflects a conspiracy by the court to aid the government in facilitating their nominees’ approval in Parliament while delaying executive action on the Anti-LGBTQ bill.
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