Justice Gertrude Torkornoo
FORMER CHIEF Justice Gertrude Torkornoo has filed an application for judicial review challenging her removal as a Justice of the Supreme Court by President John Mahama.
According to her, the Gabriel Pwamang Committee which recommended her removal as a judge acted in excess of its mandate, as it was set up to probe three petitions calling for her removal as Chief Justice and not a judge.
She argues that the Chief Justice is the administrative head of the Judiciary, a function not performed by other Justices of the Supreme Court, therefore, removal as a Chief Justice does not imply automatic removal as a Justice of the Superior Court, which includes the Supreme Court.
She avers that the decision by the President to rely on the committee’s purported findings to remove her as Chief Justice as well as a Justice of the Supreme Court is wrong and constitutes a violation of her human rights.
She is seeking among others, a declaration that “the President is devoid of power to remove a Justice of the Superior Court from office without recourse to the mandatory procedure set out in Article 146 of the Constitution.”
Removal
Justice Torkornoo was removed from office as Chief Justice and a Supreme Court judge on September 1, 2025, following the receipt of the report of a five-member committee that probed a petition filed against her.
She became the first ever Chief Justice to be removed from office following the recommendation of a committee probing allegations of misconduct and misbehaviour.
Prior to that, she was suspended on April 22, 2025, following the setting up of a five-member committee to probe the three petitions calling for her removal.
Suit
Justice Torkornoo has since mounted a legal challenge against her removal as a Justice of the Supreme Court, arguing that the committee that probed the petition had no mandate to make that recommendation.
In an affidavit in support of her application for judicial review filed before a High Court in Accra, she avers that the President, could not, by the Warrant dated September 1, 2025, remove her from both the offices of Chief Justice and a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana because the three petitions against her “were specifically for my removal from office as Chief Justice, not as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana.”
She argues that the responses she submitted to the President in respect of the three petitions were in respect of allegations for her removal as Chief Justice and not as a Justice of the Superior Court.
“The purported Prima Facie determination, a copy of which has to date not been provided to me, was in relation to the petitions for my removal as Chief Justice, and not as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana,” she pointed out.
Justice Torkornoo further argues that the committee was set up, as stipulated under Article 146(6) of the Constitution, to consider whether or not to recommend her removal as Chief Justice, but not as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana.
“The jurisdiction of a committee set up pursuant to Article 146 (6) is specifically stipulated by the 1992 Constitution to be limited to consideration of petitions against a Chief Justice,” she averred.
According to her, the committee was therefore not clothed with jurisdiction to inquire into or make recommendations on whether she ought to be removed as a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, including the Supreme Court.
She continued that jurisdiction to hear petitions for the removal of Justice of the Superior Courts is specifically stipulated by the 1992 Constitution to be vested in a committee formed pursuant to Article 146(4).
“That accordingly and respectfully, the President did not have the power to remove me as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana on account of lack of consideration of a petition to remove me from office as a Justice of the Superior Courts, lack of jurisdiction in the committee, and lack of a process for my removal from office as a Justice of the Superior Courts,” she added.
Justice Torkornoo stated that “by purporting to remove me from office both as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana and as a Chief Justice, the President acted contrary to, and in excess of the powers conferred on him by Article 146 of the Constitution.”
Justice Torkornoo is therefore asking the court to reverse her removal as a Justice of the Supreme Court as same is illegal, null, void and of no effect, “particularly as it seeks to remove me both as Chief Justice of Ghana and as a Justice of the Supreme Court.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak