The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice has assumed jurisdiction in the case filed by former Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, challenging the legality of her removal from office by President John Mahama.
This was after the court, sitting in Abuja, Nigeria, dismissed the preliminary objections filed by the Republic of Ghana through the Attorney General, challenging its jurisdiction to hear and determine the case.
The Attorney General had argued that Justice Torkornoo’s application is manifestly inadmissible and that the court is incompetent to assume jurisdiction over the suit.
The Attorney General also argued that the court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the application for the enforcement of the fundamental rights of the applicant, as the court cannot sit in a suit that involves the interpretation of the Constitution of Ghana in respect of which a Ghanaian court has delivered a decision.
Again, the Republic argued that the ECOWAS court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the suit as the case is currently pending before a court in Ghana and to entertain reliefs which are substantially the same as those being sought in Ghanaian courts is wrong.
The ECOWAS Court, presided over by a panel of three judges, in its decision on the preliminary objection, held that the case filed by the former Chief Justice had raised prima facie hence the court has jurisdiction to determine the matter.
The court, having considered Ghana’s argument, was of the opinion that the objections based on its incompetence to interpret the constitution of a member-state in respect of which Ghanaian court has delivered a ruling “is misplaced.”
“The applicant’s case is premised on alleged violation of human rights, amongst which is to fair hearing, dignity and work arising from suspension from office as well as some procedural irregularities in the process of the investigative committee, and not on a review of a decision of the Ghanaian national court,” the court held.
The court added that since the crux of the application concerns allegations of human right violation occasioned by Ghana in the course of the proceedings of the Justice Gabriel Pwamang Committee, it had jurisdiction to determine whether there have been violations of human rights.
However, the court has dismissed an application by the former Chief Justice asking for provisional measures, including reinstating her as Chief Justice pending the determination of the case.
The court held that she did not exhibit the urgency required to grant such a request, given the fact that the suspension had taken place about three months before she approached the court for legal redress.
Meanwhile, the court has given Ghana 30 days within which to file its defence to the substantive case.
Suit
Justice Torkornoo, in an application filed by her lawyer, Femi Falana San, alleges breaches of her rights to dignity, fair hearing and right to work when President Joh Dramani Mahama suspended her on April 22, 2025, following the setting up of a committee to probe three petitions calling for her removal from office.
She argues among others, a violation of her right to a fair hearing is grounded in the fact that she was not given a copy of either the supposed prima facie determination or the reasons for the making of a prima facie finding by the President, before the President and the committee formed, suspended her.
“Fairness implies that the President, in making the prima facie determination with the Council of State, must specify the particular charges in respect of which a prima facie case is deemed to have been established and the reasons for the same,” the application argues.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak