New Chief Justice Must Purge Judiciary Of Its Bad Image - Sosu

Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Francis-Xavier Sosu, wants the newly nominated Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Torkonoo, to work on ridding the judiciary of its current reputation. According to him, the Judiciary has recently been featured in reports where it was tagged as corrupt, politically biased, and unfair in the delivery of justice in the country.

The choice of Gertrude Torkonoo as the next Chief Justice has been described as refreshing by Francis-Xavier Sosu. The Madina Member of Parliament believes the nominee if approved must work to restore the judiciary’s confidence throughout her tenure. Our judiciary is not in a good position. We have been cited to be partial, corrupt and politically biased. Even the outgoing Chief Justice has a GH¢5 million bribery allegation before the General Legal Council.

He was referred to the police, and we don’t even know the status of all those investigations. So, the new Chief has a daunting task of cleaning the judiciary. We need a serious house cleaning of the judiciary. On Wednesday, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo nominated Gertrude Torkornoo, a Justice of the Supreme Court, as the next Chief Justice of Ghana pending approval by Parliament.

When approved by Parliament, Justice Torkornoo will replace Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah, who retires as Chief Justice on May 24, this year, when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 for justices of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG) has massively endorsed the nomination of Justice Gertrude Torkornoo as the next Chief Justice.

JUSAG wants Justice Torkornoo, whose nomination is subject to Parliamentary approval, to outrank current Chief Justice Anin Yeboah as the best Chief Justice with the issues of labour at heart.

According to the Association, the current head of the Judiciary has performed better than any Chief Justice in the history of Ghana as far as the welfare of their members is concerned but wants Justice Torkornoo to set the bar higher. Reacting to the nomination of Justice Torkornoo in an interview, the General Secretary of the JUSAG, Yakubu Abdulai indicated that their expectation for the next Chief Justice is for her to work towards eliminating any form of intimidation and mistreatment of their members.

With the current CJ [Justice Anin Yeboah], we are cool, his doors are always open, and the support has been massive that was why we gave him the honour of the most labour-friendly CJ of all time in the Judiciary, and we are hoping that when our mother the Lady CJ comes in, she is going to break that record and make her doors opened 24/7 for us to come and address issues of labour, issues bordering on our promotions, issues bordering on training and retraining of staff, issues bordering on disciplinary matters when it comes up.