Chief Justice defends expediting hearing on ministerial approval case

Ghanaian

Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo has defended her decision to expedite the hearing of a case filed by NDC MP Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor against the approval of some ministerial nominees, following criticism of bias from the largest opposition party.

Addressing members of the Judicial Press Corps, according to MyJoyOnline, Torkonoo explained that the Attorney General's letter requesting expedition provided cogent reasons, justifying

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She emphasized the importance of timely processing, noting that the rules allow a maximum of 21 days for a process to be filed, with an additional three days for service.

"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."

Given the impending Easter break, the Attorney General stressed that the case was a matter of governance, prompting the Chief Justice to issue a hearing notice for the case to proceed on the Wednesday before the break.

"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 clarified that all parties involved, including the applicant, Speaker of Parliament, and Attorney General, had been served, and the court proceeded to deal with the application on its merit.