Government has dismissed allegation of political undertone in the processes to remove or otherwise the Chief Justice, Gertrude Araba Asaaba Sackey-Torkornoo, from office.
At a press briefing in Accra yesterday, the first since three petitions were brought against her, Justice Torkornoo who has since been suspended insinuated that the petitions and the aftermath were politically motivated to see her back.
According to her, the grounds on which she’s being tried, most of which were judicial decisions she took as part of a panel, were frivolous and unfounded.
“So what if these current proceedings are being carefully staged to result in my removal as Chief Justice – even if there is no lawful justification?” she wondered.
But responding to the suspended Chief Justice at the Presidency, Government spokesperson, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, said Mrs Torkornoo’s suspicions were flawed.
“No such political agenda exists. President Mahama took an oath to abide by the 1992 constitution. He is enjoined to act in a particular way when he receives petitions of the sort that he has received and that is all he has done. He has no choice in the matter,” Mr Ofosu’s stated.
According to Mr Ofosu, nobody, including the suspended Chief Justice has been able to ascribe any known verifiable constitutional breach to the President in the way that he has handled this matter.
“From the very first steps in this matter, the President has kept fidelity to the constitution and has respected the spirit and letter. Everything he has done has been by the book.”
In terms of confidentiality, Mr Ofosu stressed that the President has acted strictly in accordance with the constitution.
“At no point in time has the presidency put out anything in any way, shape or form that remotely resembles any of the contents of the petition.”
Every public officer, he noted was subject to the tenets of the constitutional and advised Justice Torkornoo to allow the law to take its course without crying foul.
“It does not matter how sensitive your position is. Once the law dictates that certain processes be undertaken in respect of some alleged misconduct, the rules must come to play and that is the only guiding principle President Mahama has operated by this.
“Any claim, inference, innuendo of a political motive to the President in respect of this processes are unfounded, false and cannot be allowed to stand.
He condemned the attempt by the suspended Chief Justice to link the killing of the three justices to the venue where the Article 146 Committee is sitting.
The Chief Justice had mentioned in her statement that the Edu Lodge, where her trial was being heard, “featured very prominently in the planning of the murder of Judges on June 30 1981, and this can be read about in the Special Investigative Report on that terrible event in our national history”.
“There is absolutely no nexus between the petitions and the unfortunate incident so any effort to link the two is regrettable and should not find space in this discourse. It is most undesirable and most unacceptable.”
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
