Minority MPs on Parliament’s Appointments Committee boycotted the vetting of three Supreme Court nominees on Thursday, protesting what they called a rushed timetable for the process.
Minority leader Alexander Afenyo Markin insisted the nominees were being considered to expand the current number of Justices rather than fill empty positions. He argued that there was no vacancy on the Supreme Court bench to justify the urgency.
He said the Minority was opposed to the manner and timeframe within which the vetting was being carried out, not to the vetting itself or to the nominees as individuals.
He challenged the Majority to show what harm would come to the state, the judiciary or litigants if the nominees were given the same level of scrutiny usually applied to Supreme Court nominations.
“These nominations came to the House on Monday. Let us reason together and let us be seen being consistent with our political views. If you want to follow the precedent, please suspend today’s sitting, properly put out the advert as you requested when you were in opposition, and let us wait for the 14 days,” he said.
Afenyo Markin added that the objection was not meant to obstruct the Appointments Committee’s work or embarrass the nominees, but to ensure the process followed parliamentary procedure and constitutional requirements.
Chairman of the Appointments Committee, Bernard Ahiafor, however, dismissed the objection as “flimsy,” “hollow” and “baseless,” and the Committee proceeded with the vetting.
The three nominees are Justice Sophia Bernasko-Essah, a Justice of the Court of Appeal; Justice Edward Amoako Asante, also a Court of Appeal Justice and a former President of the ECOWAS Court of Justice; and private legal practitioner Anthony Forson Jr., a former President of the Ghana Bar Association.
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