It has emerged that three well-known National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawyers who are in private practice are representing the two persons and one organisation behind the petitions submitted to the President for the removal of the Chief Justice of the Republic.
These three petitions led to Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo’s suspension and the subsequent probe by a five-member committee chaired by Supreme Court Judge Gabriel Scott Pwamang. The probe commenced on Thursday, 15 May 2025, 24 days after the Chief Justice was temporarily removed from office pending the investigations.
At the Committee’s first in-camera sitting, Tsatsu Tsikata and Thadeus Sory announced themselves as lawyers for Shining Stars of Ghana, one of the three petitioners, and Oliver Baker-Vormawor appeared for Daniel Ofori, also a petitioner. Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ayamga Yakubu Akolgo, a lawyer and petitioner, represented himself.
Public hearing
During the hearing, Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo requested that the entire committee hearing be made public so that all Ghanaians could see firsthand everything that would transpire at the ongoing probe. She justified her request by noting that, thus far, all the processes leading the investigation have been made public, so it would only be fair for the whole country to be part of the unfolding process.
However, Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo’s request was turned down by the Justice Gabriel Scott Pwamang-led committee, which noted that since Article 146 of the 1992 constitution demands that the committee sitting be held in camera, they are inclined to abide by the dictates of the constitution.
Another issue of contention was the demand to know the exact rules that would guide the committee’s work. The five-member committee settled on the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2004 (C.I. 47), which govern proceedings at the country’s High and Circuit Courts.
Background
The Chief Justice of the Republic, Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, was suspended from office by the President of the Republic, John Dramani Mahama, on Tuesday (22 April 2025).
The president’s actions, which are said to be grounded in Article 146 (10) of the 1992 constitution, were primarily inspired by three petitions that the president received seeking the removal of the Chief Justice from office.
A group calling itself Shining Stars of Ghana submitted the first petition to the president on 14 February 2025. Kingsley Agyei, who describes himself as the chairman and convenor of the Shining Stars of Ghana, signed the petition.
The second petition, presented to the president by Daniel Ofori, is dated Monday, March 17, 2025. The petitioner essentially states 21 allegations of misbehaviour and four allegations of incompetence, all of which relate to the Chief Justice’s discharge of her administrative roles and functions as head of the judiciary.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ayamga Yakubu Akolgo (Esq), a senior police officer in the Ghana Police Service stationed at the National Police Headquarters in Accra, is the third and final petitioner to submit a petition to the president for the removal of the Chief Justice from office. Akolgo’s submission was also made on 14 February 2025.
Committee members
Justice Gabriel Scott Pwamang, who is currently the second most senior Supreme Court judge in Ghana (if you include the suspended Chief Justice in the count), or the most senior justice of the Supreme Court after the acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie (if one excludes the suspended Chief Justice), is the chair of the five-member committee.
The committee’s other members are Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu-Asiedu, a justice of the Supreme Court; Daniel Yaw Domelevo, a former auditor general; Major Flora Bazwaanura Dalugo, an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces; and Professor James Sefah Dzisah, an associate professor at the University of Ghana.
Reporting by Wilberforce Asare in Accra
