Renowned broadcaster Dr Randy Abbey has criticised Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo over the failure of the Supreme Court of Ghana to take seriously, an injunction filed by five political parties to stop the ongoing limited voter’s registration exercise.
Speaking on his Good Morning Ghana programme on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, Dr Abbey expressed surprise over the situation where that the parties who filed the injunction were told that a date for the hearing could not be set because the chief justice had travelled.
He added that the court gave a date to hear the injunction only after former President John Dramani Mahama expressed his displeasure about the matter and the date for the hearing was even after the limited registration had been completed.
“My point is that how can the absence of the chief justice be a reason why a litigant in a matter can not have a return date? You remember that former president Mahama tweeted about this particular issue, the fact that they had filed a case the previous day and the absence of the chief justice has been used as a reason why they have not been given a return date.
“And he cited that as one of the reasons for this judicial issue. Hours after that, the lawyers of those who filed the case received text messages from a register that they have now been given 17th October to give to them as a return date,“ he said.
Dr Abbey pointed out that the behaviour of the Supreme Court in the handling of the injunction against EC forms part of a trend of the court’s lackadaisical attitude towards applications filed against proponents of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.
He cited the suit challenging President Akufo-Addo’s dismissal of former Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo, which took two years, and the case challenging Akufo-Addo’s power to declare a lockdown in 2020, which also took two years, as examples of the court deliberated delaying cases against the government.
On the other hand, he said cases filed by proponents of the government like that of the issue of the voting rights of the deputy speakers of parliament are heard and judged within a matter of hours.
Watch Randy Abbey’s remarks in the video below:
BAI/AW
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