The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice has dismissed an application by former Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo that sought to temporarily halt the domestic proceedings for her removal from office.
The court dismissed the application for provisional measures on procedural grounds, ruling that Justice Torkornoo waited nearly three months after her suspension before filing the motion, which undermined her claim of imminent or exceptional circumstance required for such relief.
However, according to them, the objection that the ECOWAS Court lacked jurisdiction because similar matters were pending before Ghanaian courts was misplaced.
The judges said that the ECOWAS Court has full authority to hear the substantive human rights case and have given the Attorney-General of Ghana 30 days to file the Republic’s response.
Speaking on Joy News and monitored by NewsDesksGH on November 19, lawyer for the former Chief Justice, Nii Ayikoi Otoo, said many people misunderstood the ECOWAS Court’s powers.
“When this case was filed the first thing they told everybody is that the ECOWAS court has no jurisdiction,” he said.
He argued that this position was inaccurate and had been long explained, but wrongly dismissed.
“Some of us kept telling them that it is not true, the ECOWAS court operates whether or not a case is pending in your country, ECOWAS court will still hear. So long as it has to do with the violation of human rights,” he said.
“But they were too full of themselves. Kept saying that the court will dismiss it,” he noted.
He said the latest ruling vindicates their position.
“Now that ruling has gone against them. That they should file their process and let’s hear,” he said.
Gertrude Torkornoo’s Lawyer added that the focus should not be on the dismissal of the plea to halt the process of appointing a new Chief Justice since it is already too late.
“Rather they’re talking about this, excuse my language, useless ruling. What is the point? What will that achieve? When they’ve gone ahead and done everything that they wanted to do regarding the new appointment,” he argued.
“What is newsworthy is that their preliminary objection has been dismissed and they’ve been given 30 days to file their processes,” he added.
His comments follow a reaction from Deputy Attorney-General, Justice Srem-Sai, who wrote in a Facebook post,
“The ECOWAS Court has, this morning, dismissed Mrs Justice Gertrude Torkornoo’s application for interim measures. The Court stated that the application did not satisfy the criteria for a grant of interim measures.”
He questioned the basis for any excitement over the interim ruling.
“Why are you jubilating that an interim application has been dismissed?” he asked.
“Why didn’t they just hold their horses to allow the ruling to come? For example this ruling has come saying that it’s okay now there’s no interim application, but all the applications were pending and the still went ahead and did what they did,” he said.
The government is meant to file its formal defense to the rest of the substantive human rights violations cases within the 30 day period set by the court.
