The Director of Legal Affairs for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, has said the Chief Justice’s justification for granting the Attorney General’s request to expedite the hearing of a case filed by an NDC legislator against the approval of some ministerial nominees does not hold water.
On Thursday, April 4, the Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo stated that the content of the letter from the AG for the request was cogent enough to warrant her granting of the request.
She said the AG had written that the matter was that of governance, adding that the court was going on Easter break, hence her approval to expedite the hearing.
But reacting to the matter on Joy FM’s Top Story on April 4, Mr Tamakloe said there was no correlation between expediting the hearing and the Easter break.
He argued that based on the 1992 constitution, the Supreme Court could not order Parliament to have a sitting, implying that even if a decision was reached, the court could do nothing.
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“From the CJ, the CJ says we were going to the Easter break and so for that matter they needed the matter heard. We all do appreciate that once parliament is adjourned, the court cannot make an order directing Parliament to go and sit to consider the approval of the ministers.
“So, from when the court dismissed the injunction application it’s a week now. Has Parliament been recalled? No.
“If the decision was that because we were going on Easter break the court needed to expedite the decision on the issue of the ministerial appointment, what has been the effect?
“The process to get Parliament to sit when it adjourns is to get a certain number of MPs to do A, B, C,D and so the fact that we were going to Easter break and therefore there was a need for an expedited hearing, this explanation does not solve the problem as far as the letter or the statement from the NDC is concerned”he said.
Background
On March 27, the Supreme Court dismissed an application brought forth by South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, contesting the approval of new ministerial and deputy ministerial nominees.
In a unanimous decision, a five-member panel of the court deemed the application frivolous and an abuse of the court process and dismissed same.
Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, the applicant, had aimed to halt the vetting process in Parliament until his lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the President’s decision to reassign Ministers without Parliament’s involvement was resolved.
However, the Supreme Court concluded that the MP’s case lacked direct relevance to the nominees under consideration in Parliament, as it primarily pertained to reassigned ministers.
