Chief Justice Defends Quick Handling Of Case Challenging Approval Of Certain Ministerial Nominees

The Chief Justice has defended her decision to grant the Attorney General’s request to expedite the hearing of a case filed by NDC MP Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor against the approval of some ministerial nominees.

Gertrude Torkonoo has come under a barrage of criticism with the largest opposition party accusing her of bias.

But addressing members of the Judicial Press Corps on a wide range of issues on Wednesday, April 4, she revealed that the content of the letter from the AG insisting the reasons for the request was cogent enough to warrant her granting the request.

“Immediately a process is filled, you have a maximum of 21 days. Give or take another three days for service, you would have another so the instruction is to wait for a minimum of 25 days. If no process is filed, then same here you notice that the thought was set.

“At that time, we’ll know that everybody’s been given all the opportunity given by the rules and they didn’t follow their processes. So we can either we can deal with a motion on it. In this particular case, as soon as the case was filed, the Attorney General filed his response as he filed his affidavit to position so the case was ripe for hearing.

“We were going to go on Easter break and Attorney General Votel said this is a matter of governance. So for the court issue, a hearing notice for the case to be had and the court was gonna set on the Wednesday.

“So hearing notices were key issues so that the applicant who filed the case himself and he should remove a push to be interested in his case himself will come to court and all the difference and the two other respondents to also come to court,” she said.

The Chief Justice said she knew that the applicants, Speaker of Parliament and Attorney General had all been served.

Speaking on the generalities of the arrangements, she added “So we dealt with the application on its merit and moved on it.”

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.

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.