Four more judges for Supreme Court

A source in the Judicial Service has revealed to the Statesman that four more Justices of the Supreme Court are to be appointed in the next couple of weeks, primarily, to make up for the fall in numbers over the last few years. The Supreme Court currently has eleven Justices.

While there is no constitutional ceiling as to the number of Supreme Court judges at any given time, the Presidency has been remarkably slow in recent years in appointing new faces to the Bench.

Since the death of the former Chief Justice Mr Justice Abban and the retirement of Mr Justice Ofori Boateng and Mr Justice Sarpong, only Justice Kwame Afreh has been elevated to the Supreme Court Bench. Prior to last month’s appointment, the Supreme Court consisted of the minimum number of Justices allowed by the Constitution – ten Justices.

Recognising the need for more appointment to the highest court of the land, the 18-member Judicial Council, our source disclosed, is scheduled to meet next week with the view to forwarding to the President the name of three Court of Appeal Judges and a law lecturer, who is also in private practice.

Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the President on the advice of the Judicial Council, in consultation with the Council of State and with approval of Parliament. The noble list consists of Justice Badoo, Justice Brobbey, Mrs Justice Adenyirah and Professor Kofi Kumado of the Faculty of Law and also Director of the Legon Centre for International Affairs (LECIA), University of Ghana, Accra.

In the next year, three Supreme Court Justices are expected to retire, namely Afreh, Ampiah and Lamptey, who has been of poor health recently. According to Article 145 of the Constitution, a Justice of the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal may retire at any time after attaining the age of seventy. Notwithstanding, reaching the age of retirement, they may continue in office but only for an extra six months, if necessary.

Last month, the National Democratic Congress party in Parliament refused to participate en bloc in both the vetting and voting process of Justice Afreh, arguing against the timing of his appointment. The controversy has since petered out.

In multi-party democracies worldwide, judicial nominees often undergo fierce partisan opposition. US President Bush is presently locked in a congressional battle with Democrats concerning his nominees to the Bench. A recent campaign swing, US President Bush said he wanted a Republican-controlled Senate so he could put conservatives on the Bench.

Tsatsu Tsikata is currently seeking a declaration from the Supreme Court, which challenges the constitutionality of a practice directive given by the Chief Justice seeking to empanel all available Supreme Court judges in constitutional cases, whenever practicable.

In the celebrated case of Tsatsu Tsikata v Attorney-General (I), all nine available Justices were used. Legal experts marvel at Tsikata’s writ, noting that even if the practice statement is rendered unconstitutional, it may impliedly result in setting aside the Supreme Court ruling that the Fast Track Court is unconstitutional. A decision which grossly favoured the plaintiff.

An application for review has been filed by the Attorney-General on that case. The review is not to be heard until the court has given its decision on the subsequent writ by Tsatsu Tsikata. The writ also seeks to place an injunction on the Chief Justice from empanelling extra Justices, other than the original nine that held the case, to sit on the Review panel.

In the US, for example, the White House nor Senate Democrats, who barely control the upper chamber, are giving any quarter in their battle over what kind of judges should sit on the Federal Bench, and officials on both sides say they expect more confirmation fights in the months ahead.

At the time that Justice Afreh was being vetted last month the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee were banding together to ultimately defeat the nomination of Charles W. Pickering Snr. to a seat on the Federal Appeals Court based in New Orleans, provoking denunciations from Republicans.

Unlike the low-key perception here, US judges are known to be widely and openly nominated on ideological lines. “The President has made very clear he has definite ideas about the kind of people he wants to fill the judiciary,” Alberto R. Gonzales, the Chief lawyer in the White House said in an interview with the Washington Post two weeks ago.