Hot SourceThe embattled Chief Justice, Gertrude Araba Esaaba Torkornoo, has suffered yet another devastating blow in her desperate legal crusade to halt impeachment proceedings against her, as the Accra High Court yesterday threw out her judicial review application.
Presiding judge Justice Kwame Amoako minced no words in his ruling, describing the Chief Justice’s application as an “abuse of court process” and holding that the High Court lacks jurisdiction to interfere in the constitutionally prescribed impeachment procedures under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution.
The High Court ruled that several of Chief Justice Torkornoo’s requests were already the subject of a pending constitutional interpretation case at the Supreme Court. As such, pursuing them again constituted an abuse of the judicial process. These included:
- Accusations that the impeachment committee’s proceedings were unlawful due to the Registry’s failure to furnish authenticated copies of the petition and responses;
- A plea to halt the committee’s work until those documents were provided;
- Claims that the committee was acting in an adversarial rather than an impartial manner;
- Allegations that the membership of the committee itself was improperly constituted.
This is the second time the country’s highest-ranking judge has been told—unequivocally—that she cannot bulldoze her way out of accountability through the backdoor of the courts. Her first stop at the Supreme Court remains pending, and even there, her attempt to secure an injunction to freeze the impeachment process was thrown out earlier this month.
Torkornoo had sought nine elaborate reliefs from the High Court, including a declaration that the committee’s proceedings were unlawful, that the petition lacked merit, and that she be insulated from what she called an “adversarial and inquisitorial” inquiry.
But Justice Amoako didn’t entertain any of it. In a scathing verdict, he said much of what she was asking had already been presented to the Supreme Court, making her approach “duplicative” and legally improper.
The High Court further dismissed the remaining reliefs sought by Chief Justice Torkornoo, ruling that it lacked the jurisdiction to entertain them. The reliefs included:
- A call to nullify the committee’s sittings on grounds of alleged denial of fair hearing;
- Claims that her legal counsel was barred from fully representing her during the proceedings;
- Allegations of procedural violations of the 1992 Constitution and the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules;
- A request for a certiorari order to quash the impeachment committee’s work.
Crucially, the court noted that matters regarding the impeachment of a Chief Justice fall under the exclusive purview of an Article 146 committee—proceedings which are not open to judicial review due to their confidential and constitutional nature.
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