IMANI Africa’s Vice-President, Kofi Bentil, has defended the constitutional process that led to the removal of former Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, stressing that the decision was not a witch-hunt but a lawful exercise.
“This is not a mere witch-hunt. Constitutional processes were followed, and there was no breach of the letter of the constitution,” Bentil said on TV3’s Keypoints show.
However, he cautioned against turning such removals into a political norm, warning that it could erode judicial independence:
“Removing a Chief Justice should not be done lightly. If this continues, every new president could walk in, clear the Chief Justice and security heads, and replace them with their own people. That is not what the Constitution is meant for.”
The controversy stems from the findings of the Article 146 Committee, which concluded that Justice Torkornoo unlawfully used public funds for personal trips.
In September 2023, she reportedly charged the Judicial Service for two separate trips — one to Tanzania with her husband and another to the United States with her daughter.
In a related development, IMANI Africa’s President, Franklin Cudjoe, took a firmer stance, arguing that Justice Torkornoo’s actions could have attracted harsher penalties elsewhere.
“Listening to all the arguments, I found out that they also relied on the fact that she got herself an imprest, which actually she was not supposed to spend,” Cudjoe said on Channel One TV’s The Big Issue.
“The argument that she should have been guided by a finance officer, because she didn’t know, is neither here nor there. She was the head of the judiciary; she knows the law. In other countries, she would have been in jail by now.”
President John Dramani Mahama dismissed Justice Torkornoo from office following the committee’s report, a move that has sparked intense debate over judicial accountability and political influence.
