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Chief Justice justifies expedited handling of case challenging approval of certain ministerial nominees

The Chief Justice has defended her decision to expedite the hearing of a case brought by NDC MP Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor against the approval of certain ministerial nominees. Gertrude Torkonoo has faced criticism from the largest opposition party, which accused her of bias.

However, while addressing members of the Judicial Press Corps on various issues, she explained that the Attorney General’s request for expedition provided cogent reasons, justifying her decision.

“Immediately a process is filled, you have a maximum of 21 days. Give or take another three days for service, you would have another so the instruction is to wait for a minimum of 25 days. If no process is filed, then same here you notice that the thought was set.

“At that time, we’ll know that everybody’s been given all the opportunity given by the rules and they didn’t follow their processes. So we can either we can deal with a motion on it. In this particular case, as soon as the case was filed, the Attorney General filed his response as he filed his affidavit to position so the case was ripe for hearing.

“We were going to go on Easter break and Attorney General Votel said this is a matter of governance. So for the court issue, a hearing notice for the case to be had and the court was gonna set on the Wednesday.

“So hearing notices were key issues so that the applicant who filed the case himself and he should remove a push to be interested in his case himself will come to court and all the difference and the two other respondents to also come to court,” she said.

The Chief Justice stated that she was aware that the applicants, including the Speaker of Parliament and the Attorney General, had all been served. Regarding the generalities of the arrangements, she continued “So we dealt with the application on its merit and moved on it.”

Background

On March 27, the Supreme Court dismissed an application filed by South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, contesting the approval of new ministerial and deputy ministerial nominees.

In a unanimous decision, a five-member panel of the court deemed the application frivolous and an abuse of the court process.

The applicant, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, sought to halt the vetting process in Parliament until his lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the President’s decision to reassign Ministers without Parliament’s involvement was resolved.

However, the Supreme Court concluded that the MP’s case lacked direct relevance to the nominees under consideration in Parliament, as it primarily pertained to reassigned Ministers.

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