Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has described as out of place the empaneling of the Acting Chief Justice, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, on the Supreme Court panel that heard an application for the suspension of Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo.

Reacting to the court’s majority decision to dismiss the application of his client, Godfred Dame, who had also earlier raised his objection during the proceedings, described Justice Baffoe-Bonnie’s inclusion on the panel as a curious case.

“I find it quite intriguing to start with that the Acting Chief Justice himself presided over the proceedings, and, as I said, I find it very incongruous because indeed, if at all there is any beneficiary from all of this, it is the Acting Chief Justice. He is a direct beneficiary of all of these,” he stated.

He stated that it is unprecedented and wrong that the Acting Chief Justice, who empaneled the bench, also decided to sit on the case.

He further described the near-split decision of the court as telling.

“It’s a three-to-two ruling, a very narrow decision. We will wait for the reasons; when the reasons come, we will advise ourselves. The narrowness of the decision itself indicates clearly that the application had merit,” he said.

A five-member panel of the apex court of the land, chaired by the Acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, dismissed the petition filed by the Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, by a 3:2 majority decision.

The justices who voted to dismiss the application were Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, Justice Yonny Kulendi, and Justice Amadu Omoro Tanko.

The dissenting judges were Justice Ernest Gyaewu and Justice Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu.

The chairman of the panel announced that the full judgment would be released on May 21, 2025.

Vincent Ekow Assafuah filed a motion at the Supreme Court seeking to halt the suspension of Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Sackey Torkornoo by President John Dramani Mahama.

The application, filed on Thursday, April 24, 2025, requested that the Supreme Court issue an order restraining any further action related to the Chief Justice’s removal under Article 146 until the court has heard and delivered its final ruling on an already pending matter regarding the issue.

Assafuah, through his lawyers, also requested that the court restrain the committee of inquiry established by the president from proceeding with the probe into the petitions filed against the Chief Justice.

In the suit, the lawmaker raised concerns that the petition against the Chief Justice, her subsequent suspension, and the formation of a committee to investigate the matter are “a farce and the product of a preconceived orchestration to unconstitutionally remove the Chief Justice from office.”





GA/AE