A High Court in Accra has dismissed an application by Ghana’s suspended Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkonoo, seeking to halt impeachment proceedings against her.
The Human Rights Division of the court ruled that the judicial review application, filed on 9 June, was both an abuse of court process and beyond its jurisdiction to hear.
Justice Kwame Amoako said the claims largely repeated issues already pending before the Supreme Court in a separate constitutional case brought by Justice Torkonoo.
It is the second time a court challenge by the suspended Chief Justice has failed. An earlier bid to secure an injunction against the removal process was rejected.
Justice Torkonoo had asked the High Court for nine orders, including a declaration that the Article 146 committee investigating her had acted unlawfully. She also wanted the court to stop the committee’s work until it provided her with authenticated copies of the petitions against her and her responses.
But the judge found that several of her complaints—such as the legality of the committee’s composition and whether it was conducting an impartial inquiry—were already before the Supreme Court. Hearing them again, he said, would amount to “duplicative litigation” and was therefore an abuse of process.
Other requests, including allegations of unfair hearing, claims that her lawyers had been prevented from representing her, and accusations of breaches of the Constitution and court rules, were struck out because the High Court has no authority to intervene in an Article 146 inquiry.
Under Ghana’s Constitution, proceedings of such a committee must be held in private and are insulated from external court review.
Justice Torkonoo remains suspended while the committee’s work continues. The Supreme Court is yet to rule on her separate constitutional challenge to the process.
