Azar 'takes on' Dame on 'personal interest' claim against Acting CJ Paul Baffoe-Bonnie

Renowned US-based Ghanaian lawyer and scholar, Prof Stephen Kwaku Asare, has reacted to a assertion by erstwhile Attorney General Godfred Dame that the Acting Chief Justice, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, should not person been portion of the Supreme Court sheet that presided implicit the suit challenging the constitutionality of the suspension of Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, by President John Dramani Mahama.

In a station shared connected Facebook connected May 6, 2025, Prof Kwaku Asare, who is wide known arsenic Kwaku Azar, without mentioning names, said that Dame’s assertion that Justice Baffoe-Bonnie was the lone idiosyncratic successful the satellite who stood to payment from the suspension of Justice Torkornoo and should not person been portion of the sheet that heard the case, was far-fetched.

He explained that the accusation against the Acting Chief Justice has nary ineligible backing due to the fact that helium is lone successful the relation owed to his presumption arsenic the astir elder Supreme Court judge, and that determination is thing which shows that helium (Baffoe-Bonnie) volition beryllium made the substantive Chief Justice if Justice Torkornoo is yet dismissed.

“The assertion that the Acting Chief Justice has a idiosyncratic involvement successful the result of the petitions seeking the removal of the Chief Justice is hard to prolong — some legally and logically.

“The Acting Chief Justice assumes that relation not by idiosyncratic ambition oregon enforcement discretion, but by cognition of law command. Article 144(6) of the 1992 Constitution is unequivocal: ‘Where the bureau of Chief Justice is vacant oregon the Chief Justice is, for immoderate reason, incapable to execute the functions of his office, those functions shall beryllium performed by the astir elder of the Justices of the Supreme Court.’ The acting relation is simply a relation of seniority and circumstance—not idiosyncratic choice,” Kwaku Azar wrote.

He added, “There is nary assurance that the Acting Chief Justice volition beryllium appointed arsenic the substantive Chief Justice if the petitions succeed. That assignment is the prerogative of the President, pursuing the prescribed law process. Conversely, the nonaccomplishment of the petitions does not diminish his lasting arsenic the astir elder Justice of the Supreme Court. To suggest, therefore, that helium has a idiosyncratic involvement successful the result is to misapprehend some the mechanics of law succession and the ethos of judicial service.”

A five-member sheet of the apex tribunal of the land, chaired by the Acting Chief Justice, Justice Baffoe-Bonnie, connected May 6, 2025, dismissed the petition filed by the Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, for the reversal of the suspension of Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo by a 3:2 bulk decision.

Before the judgement of the tribunal connected Tuesday, May 6, 2025, the determination to reconstitute the sheet which presided implicit the lawsuit faced beardown absorption from erstwhile Attorney General, Godfred Dame, who is besides the ineligible typical for Vincent Ekow Assafuah.

Dame objected to the panel’s reconstitution, according to GhanaWeb’s ineligible affairs correspondent, George Ayisi, arguing that Acting Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, present presiding implicit the case, is straight affected by the result and, therefore, should not pb the proceedings.

His objection was unanimously overruled, but aft the case, the erstwhile AG insisted that it was incorrect for the Acting CJ to beryllium connected the sheet that heard the case.

“I find it rather intriguing to commencement with that the Acting Chief Justice himself presided implicit the proceedings, and, arsenic I said, I find it precise incongruous due to the fact that indeed, if astatine all, determination is immoderate beneficiary from each of this, it is the Acting Chief Justice. He is simply a nonstop beneficiary of each of these,” helium told the media.

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