His comments come amid growing public debate surrounding the legitimacy of the closed-door inquiry into three petitions seeking the Chief Justice’s removal. Justice Torkornoo has challenged the constitutionality of the process and filed an injunction at the Supreme Court.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with JoyNews’ Blessed Sogah in Abidjan, Dr. Spio-Garbrah remarked that the ongoing legal process must be respected, even by those at the very top of the judicial system.

“As Chief Justice, we are implementing the law. She says the law is the law—and so the law is the law—and the law is being applied to her,” he said.

“The incidents that are being cited, unless she proves that they are incorrect, must stand.”

While the Chief Justice has pointed to personal hardship and procedural irregularities in challenging the process, the former minister declined to speculate on her emotional state, choosing instead to reflect on the broader human condition.

“It depends on how each individual responds to adversity. We all go through it—we lose loved ones, suffer accidents—and how we deal with it varies. So I won’t comment on what kind of adversity she claims to be facing,” he said.

Responding to concerns raised about a change in the location of the disciplinary hearing, Dr. Spio-Garbrah maintained that the government has the final say in procedural arrangements.

“All I’ve heard is that the location where she expected the hearing to take place wasn’t the one the government chose. But ultimately, it is the government that decides where the hearing should be held,” the former minister said.

On the matter of resignation, Spio-Garbrah emphasized that stepping down is a personal choice, often shaped by a complex mix of professional and personal considerations.

“A resignation is an individual decision. One must weigh all the information available at any given time. But the good news, from what I know, is that the Chief Justice—and others in similar high public office—retire on their full salary.”

Dr. Spio-Garbrah questioned the rationale for continuing in office when, by law, senior public officials such as the Chief Justice retire on their full salary.

While Dr. Spio-Garbrah refrained from making direct accusations, he implied that the decision to stay may extend beyond purely professional or legal concerns.

“So if you’re going to retire on your salary, why worry about staying on? Unless, of course, you want to continue enjoying some privileges—like the ability for your husband and children to travel—which you might not have access to once you leave office. But the other standard benefits remain. It’s a personal judgment, and I’m not in a position to make that decision for her,” he noted.

Source: Emmanuel Tetteh

This was an increase of 181 cases from the 2021/2022 legal year, which saw 799 cases pending, out of which 385 cases were concluded by the court, leading to a backlog of 414 cases.

The above data were contained in a letter dated February 7, 2024, from the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, to the President, requesting for the number of Justices of the Supreme Court to be increased from the current 15 to 20 to enable the court to handle the numerous cases pending before it for effective justice delivery.

The Chief Justice proposed the appointment of Justices Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, Cyra Pamela Koranteng, Eric Kyei Baffour, Justice Edward Amoako Asante and Angelina Mensah Homiah, all justices of the Appeal Court, onto the Supreme Court.

Information gathered by the Daily Graphic revealed that the letter by the Chief Justice to the President followed a conversation among Justice Torkornoo, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Speaker of Parliament, Albert Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, on the manpower challenges facing the apex court.

A-G, GBA agree with CJ

Upon receipt of the letter from the Chief Justice, the President, through his Executive Secretary, Nana Bediatuo Asante, wrote to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, and the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), seeking their inputs to assist the President in making a decision on whether to accept the request from the Chief Justice to nominate five more justices to the Supreme Court.

In their respective responses sighted by the Daily Graphic, the Attorney-General and the National President of the Ghana Bar Association, Yaw Acheampong Boafo, agreed with the proposal by the Chief Justice.

For the Attorney-General, the proposal should be considered on the basis of the growing backlog of cases from 414 in the 2021/2022 legal year to 595 in the 2022/2023 legal year.

He, however, advised the government to also take into consideration the financial implication that such new appointments would have on the public purse, given the salaries and emoluments of Justices of the apex court.

The GBA, on the other hand, agreed with the proposal by the Chief Justice in principle, but added that such a proposal should only be considered after due consultation with other relevant bodies such as Parliament and the Council of State.

Criticisms

The Chief Justice has been criticised by some stakeholders when the proposal for the appointment of five additional Justices to the Supreme Court became public, with some accusing her of pandering to the packing of the Supreme Court.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) described the proposal by the Chief Justice as unconstitutional, arguing that nowhere under the 1992 Constitution was the Chief Justice empowered to propose nominations as Justices of the Supreme Court.

Data and analysis

But the letter by the Chief Justice to the President had justified the request for additional Justices of the apex court with detailed analysis and data over the last five legal years.

The data included cases filed within a legal year, number of Justices in a particular legal year, the backlog of cases from previous years, the number of cases the court hears within a particular period, and the difficulty the Chief Justice had in constituting different panels to deal with the high caseload due to the manpower challenges.

According to the data, there were 761, 869, 906, 799 and 939 cases before the Supreme Court in the 2018/2019, 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 legal years respectively.

The court was able to conclude 559 cases with 14 judges, 653 cases with 18 judges, 694 cases with 16 judges, 385 cases with 14 judges and 344 cases with 12 judges in the respective legal years under review.

What this meant was that there was a backlog of 202, 216, 221, 414 and 595 cases in the respective legal years. The Supreme Court is properly constituted by five Justices to deal with appeal cases or in the exercise of its supervisory jurisdiction, and seven justices to deal with cases involving the interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution. These numbers are enhanced by two justices when the cases go on review.

The Chief Justice, in her letter to the President, said currently, the court sat three days in a week, dealing with an average of 15 cases daily and approximately 180 cases in a month, a situation that made it practically impossible to have stand-alone panels to deal with the high volume of cases.

“With the current number of 15 Justices, including the Chief Justice and with recusals necessitated by the oft-occurring situation where judges of the Supreme Court either sat on a matter on appeal at the Court of Appeal, or presided over the trial of a case on appeal, it is practically impossible to create stand-alone in any given week,” the Chief Justice said in the letter.

More justifications

Justice Torkornoo further told the President in the letter that the high volume of cases had compelled Justices of the court to sit on multiple panels to deal with the cases, but that due to the number, the court still ended up with a substantial backlog in the legal year.

Such a situation, she said, had also made it difficult for the judges at the apex court to find ample time in conducting or directing research. “This compels Judges to take longer to work on decisions that satisfy them of the quality of research required for a court of its obligation as the final determiner of issues,” she said.

Again, the Chief Justice said the building of about 100 courts throughout the country since 2022 had also increased the workload on the Supreme Court. “The number of judges needs to be increased to meet the country’s justice needs,” she said.

Number of justices

Article 128(1) of the 1992 Constitution provides for not less than nine judges, other than the Chief Justice, on the SC, but places no limit on the number the court should have. There have been public calls for the number of Supreme Court Justices to be capped at nine just like that of the US Supreme Court.

However, such calls have been rejected by some prominent personalities, including former Chief Justices, Justices Sophia Akufo and Anin Yeboah, and a former Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye.

They have posited that unlike the Supreme Court of the US and other countries, the Supreme Court of Ghana had a broad jurisdiction, mandating it to deal with numerous cases, hence capping its number could affect justice delivery.

The Supreme Court of Ghana is clothed with numerous jurisdictions under the 1992 Constitution such as the final appellate court in all civil and criminal matters in the country, final appellate matters in chieftaincy matters, the only court with power to interpret and enforce the Constitution, and also supervisory jurisdiction.

Other jurisdictions include the Presidential election petition, jurisdiction to determine whether or not a secret document from the State should be produced in court and also the jurisdiction to determine the compensation for a person wrongfully jailed.

According to those who have rejected calls for a cap on the number of Justices of the Supreme Court, unlike Ghana, other countries have made the Court of Appeal the final appellate court, while others such as the US Supreme Court have the power to decide which cases to hear.

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It will be the second of the three series observed thrice yearly, apart from March and November.

In a press release signed by Alex Nartey, National Coordinator of ADR, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, it stated, “We wish to bring to the attention of the general public that the Chief Justice has declared Monday, 15th to Friday, 19th July 2024 as ADR Week for this Legal Year Term.”

The theme for the week is “Building the Pillars of Justice through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).”

“The rationale for the ADR week is to afford the ADR Directorate of the Judicial Service the opportunity to inform the citizenry of the presence of ADR within the court system, its importance in seeking justice, and how to take advantage of such an important process for meaningful access to justice, especially for the poor and the vulnerable,” it added.

“It is also to afford court users whose cases are pending before the courts the benefit of using ADR during the week under the ‘Mass Mediation Exercise.'”

The release stated that a total of 138 Courts, comprising 35 Circuit Courts and 103 District Courts, shall participate by devoting the entire week to the settlement of court cases with ADR across the country.

There will be courtroom education on ADR to deepen the knowledge of ADR among the litigating public by Judges, Magistrates, and ADR officials throughout the week, it noted.

The Bar (lawyers), disputants, the Media, and the public are therefore encouraged to participate fully and cooperate with the Judicial Service to make this Legal Year Term’s ADR Week a success, the press release appealed.

It concluded by saying ADR has been adopted by the Judicial Service of Ghana as part of its adjudication process, dubbed “Court-Connected ADR.”

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She said the present land administration regime “presented a huge blockade to justice delivery” as the ownerships were customary law based, greatly affecting the nation’s economic growth.

The Chief Justice was opening the 2023 Chief Justice’s Forum in Ho, which was on the theme: “Building the Pillars of Justice.”

She noted the support of chiefs was required in the development of a credible record of land ownership, which would aid timely resolution of land issues to promote economic growth.

“Allow me on this occasion to touch on an aspect of justice delivery that is presenting huge blockade to the administration of justice and investment within our society. The subject of land administration. The subject of the proper administration of land and ownership has now become an extremely sour point, that the courts need the active attention of our houses of chiefs and ethnic leaderships on.

“Whether land ownership is traced to clans, families or stools, this is invariably a matter of custody, and invariably a matter of fact determined only by clear and cogent evidence presented by leaders of the stools or families that the lands belong to”.

“When evidence is compromised by inconsistencies, contradictions and alleged parallel lines of leadership, investors become trapped within these consistencies and contradictions. They are carried over to courts to resolve issues that have arisen out of these inconsistencies and contradictions, and citizens, who only wish to plan their lives and pursue wealth creation, become victims of the pains caused by unclear land ownership lines.

“It is my deep and sincere cry to the houses of chiefs to begin to pay close attention to creating clear records of ownership of lands within the various paramountcies – whether the land ownership is vested in families, clans or stools.

“As custodians of customs, please allow the courts to look to you for support in building this pillar of justice – a database of land ownership in our country. This will assist in early and prompt resolution of what has become an almost excruciating path of justice delivery, and a huge disincentive to investments in the country for both citizens and foreigners, individuals and corporate bodies alike

“This situation is clearly shaking the ethical foundations of economic growth of our country, and we must pay attention to it,” she said.

The Chief Justice stressed the role of traditional leaders in an effective land ownership and administration system, saying, “We must try to create a legal system that understands the unique circumstances and challenges faced by us as Ghanaians – in this case a society in which the most precious asset for human living, land, is primarily vested in people groups and not the state or individuals.

“By placing collective consciousness of the impact of the way land ownership is being managed by communities at the center of deliberations at the level of traditional leadership, traditional leaders can ensure that we render the obligation to deliver justice as not just a cold and personal concept to be understood only by the court, but the collaborative leadership based effort that brings prosperity to the people.”

The annual Chief Justice Forum has become a stage for deliberation and input to grow justice in the country and it brings together various stakeholders including attorneys, security agencies, traditional leaders and civil society organisations.

The Chief Justice said an ethical culture of fairness and equity by all stakeholders was required in meeting the aspired realms of justice for the country, and which also required cooperation, collaboration, and accountability.

She said the culture of rule of law needed to be fostered to be able to ensure order and promote stability, safety and confidence.

The Chief Justice noted how legal knowledge would empower citizens on their rights and responsibilities, and further called to “collectively embrace” electronic court processes for effective justice delivery.

The forum was chaired by Togbe Tepre Hodo, President of the Volta Region House of Chiefs, who commended the forum initiative, and said it would go a long way to enhance confidence in the nation’s justice administration.

“To most Ghanaians justice is still a half open and a half closed book, and it is only when such forums are organised that the everyday person gets to appreciate what justice delivery is all about,” he said.

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