Former Director of the Ghana School of Law, Kwaku Ansa-Asare, has commended Acting Chief Justice Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie for adhering to legal precedent in the ongoing Supreme Court case involving Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo.
According to him, Justice Baffoe-Bonnie’s leadership of the five-member panel was both procedurally sound and grounded in constitutional precedent.
“The acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, sitting on the case, has really followed precedent. Since the 1992 Constitution came into force, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the Chief Justice has the authority to empanel judges for the Court’s business. This precedent has been followed in several other instances,” he explained in an interview on Joy FM‘s Top Story on Tuesday, May 6.
His comments come in the wake of an objection raised by former Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame, who challenged Justice Baffoe-Bonnie’s role in empanelling and presiding over the case, calling it “unprecedented” and “improper,” given that the matter directly concerns the substantive Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo.
However, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the objection after a short recess, paving the way for the case to proceed under Justice Baffoe-Bonnie’s leadership.
The current panel includes Justices Henrietta Mensa Bonsu, Yonny Kulendi, Amadu Tanko, and Ernest Gaewu.
In a related development, the Supreme Court has, by a narrow 3–2 majority, dismissed an application seeking to halt proceedings on petitions calling for the removal of Chief Justice Torkornoo.
The ruling, delivered on Tuesday, saw Justices Mensa Bonsu and Gaewu dissenting, while the majority held that the petitions should proceed without delay.
The Court has announced that the full reasoning behind the decision will be made public on May 21, 2025.
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