OPPOSITION Lawmakers in Ghana have fiercely condemned the suspension of the country’s chief justice, accusing President John Mahama of trying to “pack the courts” with justices who are sympathetic to the governing party, the NDC.
Gertrude Torkornoo was removed from her post on Wednesday – the first time a chief justice has been suspended in the country’s history.
The action was taken after three petitions, which made allegations against Ms Torkornoo, were filed.
The content of the petitions has not been made public and Ms Torkornoo is yet to comment openly on the matter.
Mahama’s supporters have backed the move as a long overdue move to clean up the judiciary.
But it was condemned by the opposition as “nothing short of a brazen judicial coup, a reckless abuse of executive power, and a direct assault on the independence of Ghana’s judiciary”, the MPs said in a statement.
On Tuesday, a statement from the presidency said the chief justice was asked to step aside so that the allegations against her could be investigated.
Since the suspension was announced, two more petitions have been filed against Ms Torkornoo.
Former attorney general Godfred Yeboah Dame told the BBC he thought the suspension was a “complete charade… the biggest assault on the [judiciary] in the nation’s history”.
Before Ms Torkornoo was suspended, lawyers filed at least two lawsuits challenging the legality of the procedure being used by the president.
By law the president should have given copies of the petition to the chief justice before suspending her, which he initially failed to do. However, he did later make them available to her.
The caucus of opposition MPs says that by suspending the chief justice before the Supreme Court had ruled on these lawsuits, Mahama had “violated” due process.
But some Ghanaians support the president’s move.