Like the motto of football club Accra Hearts of Oak that says ‘never say die until the bones are rotten’, Gertrude Essaba Sackey Torkornoo, is back in court, challenging her removal as a justice of the Supreme Court (SC).
It follows several attempts by the removed Chief Justice and associates in courts to halt the processes by a Committee set up by President John Dramani Mahama to remove her.
The 5-member Committee was constituted after three petitions were presented to the President seeking her removal.
Subsequent to that, the ex-CJ, was relieved of her positions after one of the three petitions, found her as having misconducted herself.
The former CJ, in a suit filed at an Accra High Court on Wednesday September 17, argued that the president erred in his September 1 statement stripping her of first as CJ and also a justice of the apex court.
Justice Torkornoo contends that her removal as a Justice of the Supreme Court was unlawful as the recommendation for her removal was in respect of her office as the Chief Justice, which followed a procedure completely different from that of the removal of a Justice of the Supreme Court.
In the reliefs, she prayed the court an order of certiorari to quash the warrant of removal as a Justice of the Supreme Court issued by the President on the basis that it was in violation of the constitutional provisions for the removal of the Justice of the Superior Courts, and therefore unlawful, null and void.
She also wants the court to declare that President Mahama lacks the power to remove a Justice of the Superior Courts from office except the removal is in accordance with Article 146 of the Constitution.
Below are the reliefs
(a)A declaration that the President is devoid of power to remove a Justice of the Superior Court from office without recourse to the mandatory procedure set out in Article 146 of the Constitution:
(b) A declaration that jurisdiction to hear a petition for the removal of a Justice of the Superior Court from office lies with a body properly constituted under article 146 (4) of the 1992 Constitution.
c) a declaration that the Warrant of Removal executed by the President dated 1 September, removing the applicant herein from both the office of Chief Justice and 2025 purportedly of the Superior Court of Judicature is unlawful, null, void and of no effect;
(d) an order of certiorari to bring into this Honourable Court for the purpose of being quashed and for quashing the Warrant of Removal dated September 1, 2025 referred to in (c) above, and to quash same as being in violation of the mandatory provisions regarding the removal of a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature from office.
(e) any further order(s) as this Court may deem fit to make.
By Gifty Boateng