Chief Justice justifies expedited hearing of NDC MP's case against ministerial nominees

Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo has detailed her decision to expedite the hearing of a case filed by NDC MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, against the approval of certain ministerial nominees, in response to criticism from the largest opposition party.

Addressing members of the Judicial Press Corps on Thursday, April 4, Torkonoo explained that the content of the Attorney-General's letter, emphasizing the reasons for an expedited hearing, justified her decision to grant it.

"Immediately a process is filed, you have a maximum of 21 days. Give or take another three days for service, you would have another, so the instruction is to wait for a minimum of 25 days. If no process is filed, then same here you notice that the thought was set. At that time, we'll know that everybody has been given all the opportunities given by the rules and they didn't follow their processes.

"In this particular case, as soon as the case was filed, the Attorney General filed his response. He filed his affidavit to the opposition. So the case was ripe for hearing. We were going to go on Easter break and the Attorney General wrote and said that this is a matter of governance so could the court issue a hearing notice for the case to be heard, and the court was going to sit on Wednesday, so hearing notices were issued so that the applicant who filed the case himself and who should be interested in his case himself will come to court and the two other respondents will also come to court." Citinewroom.com quoted the Cheif Justice.

She also noted that all relevant parties, including the applicant, the Speaker of Parliament, and the Attorney General, had been served, emphasizing that the application was dealt with on its merit.

“So the bailiff went and served all of them with hearing notices and when the court sat on that Wednesday, it formed part of our list because hearing notices have been served on everybody and the respondents had filed their affidavit in opposition. At least the Attorney General had.”

“So when the case was called, the affidavit of service was on the docket. We knew that the applicant had been served, the speaker had been served, the Attorney General had been served, the Speaker’s lawyer was in court, the Attorney General was in court, and the Attorney General had filed his affidavit in opposition, so nothing should stop the hearing,” she stated.

Background

The Supreme Court, on March 27, unanimously dismissed an application presented by South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, regarding the approval of new ministerial and deputy ministerial nominees.

A five-member panel of the court deemed the application frivolous and an abuse of the court process.

Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, the applicant, sought to halt the vetting process in Parliament until his lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the President's decision to reassign Ministers without Parliament's involvement was resolved.

However, the Supreme Court concluded that the MP's case lacked direct relevance to the nominees' consideration in Parliament, as it primarily pertained to reassigned Ministers.

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