Why suspended CJ Torkonoo’s Judicial Review application against impeachment process was dismissed
By DL News
Published
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Presiding judge Justice Kwame Amoako ruled that the application constituted an abuse of court process and that the High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
The Human Rights Division of the High Court in Accra has thrown out a judicial review application filed by suspended Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo, dealing a major blow to her legal bid to halt impeachment proceedings initiated under Article 146 of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.
Presiding judge Justice Kwame Amoako ruled that the application constituted an abuse of court process and that the High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
The decision marks Justice Torkonoo’s second failed legal challenge to the removal process. Her earlier constitutional interpretation application before the Supreme Court, as well as a separate injunction request, had also been dismissed.
The latest judicial review, filed on June 9, 2025, sought nine reliefs, including a declaration that the investigative committee’s operations were unlawful.
The Chief Justice specifically asked the court to annul the committee’s proceedings and bar it from continuing without providing her with authenticated copies of the petitions and responses.
Justice Amoako divided the reliefs into two categories: those dismissed as an abuse of process and those dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction.
The court noted that several of the Chief Justice’s concerns were already pending before the Supreme Court, making her High Court action duplicative and improper. These included:
Claims that the committee was operating unlawfully without providing authenticated documents.
Allegations that the committee was adversarial instead of impartial.
Objections to the committee’s composition.
Justice Amoako held that raising these same issues in two separate courts simultaneously was procedurally improper.
Other reliefs, such as:
Allegations of denial of a fair hearing,
Claims that her lawyers were barred from representing her,
And requests to quash the committee’s proceedings via certiorari
were dismissed because they fell outside the High Court’s jurisdiction, especially since Article 146(8) explicitly states that proceedings related to the removal of a Chief Justice are to be held in-camera and insulated from external review.
