Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo (L) and Kwaku Ansa-Asare
Legal luminary Kwaku Ansa-Asare has asserted that the fate of suspended Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo is sealed.
According to Ansa-Asare, a former director of the Ghana School of Law, Justice Torkornoo will certainly be ousted from office once the committee investigating three petitions for her removal completes its work.
Speaking in an interview on Woezor TV, shared on X on April 25, 2025, the statesman said his analysis of the situation points to only one conclusion.
“Without mincing words, I think the CJ (Chief Justice) will not come out well at all. Having regard to what is going on, the writing is on the wall, the CJ will be removed.
“I don’t think I would be doing any credit to myself if, after observing the landscape, I still maintained that the Chief Justice would come out clean and therefore keep her job. I don’t think so,” he said.
Chief Justice Torkornoo was suspended after President John Dramani Mahama, in consultation with the Council of State, found a prima facie case in the three petitions for her removal. These petitions were filed by a group calling itself the Shining Stars of Ghana; a senior police officer, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ayamga Yakubu Akolgo (Esq.); and a private citizen, Daniel Ofori.
Shining Stars, who first petitioned the president on February 14, 2025, accused her of breaching the 1992 Constitution of Ghana in her ruling in a suit filed by the current Minority Leader, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, against the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, over the declaration of four seats in Parliament as vacant.
In the second petition, presented by Daniel Ofori on March 17, 2025, Justice Torkornoo is accused of misappropriating about GH¢261,890 and US$30,000 during her foreign trips.
“In 2023, the Honourable Chief Justice misappropriated the sum of GH¢261,890 of public funds for private foreign travel with her husband, Mr. Francis Kofi Torkornoo, and her daughter, Miss Edem S.A. Torkornoo, and US$30,000 in per diem allowance when, to her knowledge, neither the husband nor the daughter of the Chief Justice was entitled to have their travel expenses or any travel allowances paid for out of the funds of the Judicial Service,” part of Ofori’s petition reads.
The third petition, filed by ACP Ayamga Yakubu Akolgo, accuses Justice Torkornoo of violating judicial ethics and calls for her removal.
The senior police officer claims in his petition that the Chief Justice abused her power by wrongly causing his arrest and detention.
“She abused the sacred judicial office by wrongly causing my arrest and detention. The arrest and detention were capricious, unreasonable, unilateral, and without justification, constituting stated misbehaviour and incompetence as provided in Article 146(1) of the Constitution. The arrest and detention infringed on my rights, dignity, and caused pain, trauma, and humiliation,” his petition states.
BAI/MA
You can also watch the latest Twi News on GhanaWeb TV below:
Meanwhile, watch as frustrated Ghanaians speak out on poor network challenges