Former Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, has filed an application for judicial review at the High Court, challenging the legality of her removal from office as Supreme Court Judge by President John Dramani Mahama.
In the motion, filed through her counsel, Justice Torkornoo is seeking multiple declarations that the President acted outside the powers conferred by the 1992 Constitution when he issued a removal warrant on September 1, 2025, which stripped her of both the office of Chief Justice and as a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature.
She contends that the procedure set out under Article 146 of the Constitution, which mandates an inquiry by a properly constituted body before a Superior Court judge can be removed, was not followed.
Among the reliefs sought, Justice Torkornoo is asking the High Court to:
(a)A declaration that the President is devoid of power to remove a Justice of the Superior Court from office without recourse to the mandatory procedure set out in Article 146 of the Constitution:
(b) A declaration that jurisdiction to hear a petition for the removal of a Justice of the Superior Court from office lies with a body properly constituted under article 146 (4) of the 1992 Constitution.
c) a declaration that the Warrant of Removal executed by the President dated 1 September, removing the applicant herein from both the office of Chief Justice and 2025 purportedly of the Superior Court of Judicature is unlawful, null, void and of no effect;
(d) an order of certiorari to bring into this Honourable Court for the purpose of being quashed and for quashing the Warrant of Removal dated September 1, 2025 referred to in (c) above, and to quash same as being in violation of the mandatory provisions regarding the removal of a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature from office.
(e) any further order(s) as this Court may deem fit to make.
President Mahama removed Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo from office in accordance with Article 149 (9) of the 1992 Constitution.
Her removal followed recommendations by a committee chaired by Justice Gabriel Pwamang, a Justice on the Supreme Court bench, within a four-month period of hearing, found that the grounds of stated misbehaviour under Article 146(1) had been established and recommended her removal from office.