Ghana Has No Supreme Court -lawyer

A Takoradi-based legal practitioner who prefers not to be named has called on both President Kufuor and the Chief Justice (CJ) to take immediate steps to swear into office the supreme court judges whose appointments were confirmed by parliament recently to avoid any constitutional crisis in the country.

According to him, technically speaking Ghana at the moment has no supreme court because the panel as constituted now falls short of the constitutionally required number, which means that it cannot sit and hear cases, even though the court has the number that can form a quorum.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Chronicle in Takoradi yesterday, the lawyer said if there should be a serious constitutional case that needs an immediate attention, there would be no supreme court to determine it because the court, as constituted now, cannot sit because it falls short of the constitutionally required number.

According to him, Article 128 (1) of the 1992 constitution states clearly that the supreme court shall consist of the Chief Justice and not less than nine other justices of the supreme court.

This, he argued, means that there cannot be a supreme court if the membership is less than 10, including the Chief Justice himself.

He further told Chronicle that the supreme court, as it is now, has nine members. He gave their names as: Justices E.K Wiredu, the CJ, Bamford-Addo, Ampeah, Kpegah, Atubuga, Acquah, Sophia Akuffo, Adzoe and Afreh. Adjarbeng recently tendered in his resignation, whilst Lamptey is on retirement.

He further told this reporter that if we were operating under the 1969 Constitution, nobody would have bothered to raise the issue because the CJ was empowered to pick a Judge from either Appeal or High Court to sit as an additional Supreme Court Judge if the need arose.

He however stated that under the 1979 and 1992 Constitution, the CJ has no power to appoint a judge from one of the superior courts to sit as an additional Supreme Court judge when the said judge has not been nominated, approved by parliament and also sworn into office by the president.

He also said though the recently appointed Supreme Court judges have been vetted and approved by parliament, the Constitution does not allow them to sit as Supreme Court judges because they have not been sworn into office by President Kufuor to legalise their stay at the supreme court.

The lawyer consequently advised Nana Akufo-Addo, Attorney General and Minister of Justice, to immediately advise his government to get the already aproved judges sworn into office by President Kufuor to avoid any constitutional embarrassment.

When this reporter asked him whether the present Supreme Court judges cannot sit to handle cases since the same article 128 of the Constitution mandates that not less than five judges can sit as a court, he said that is correct, but before the five judges can sit, the Supreme Court itself must be properly composed as directed by the constitution.

When Chronicle contacted, Mr. Joseph Ebow Quashie, the immediate past president of the Ghana Bar Association to comment on the arqument being advanced by his colleaque, he said all that the lawyer said is true.

After a careful examination of the constitution in his Chambers, where he was interviewed by this reporter, Ebow, as he is popularly known in Takoradi, said that indeed the Supreme Court as it is now is not properly constituted and cannot therefore handle cases.

“This also goes to prove the point that the president was justified when he appointed additional judges for consideration as Supreme Court judges, which many thought he was trying to pack the Supreme Court,” he added.