Mahama Ayariga — NDC MP for Bawku Central

Minority Caucus endorses new CJ

Daniel Kenu Politics Jun - 07 - 2023 , 11:30

The Minority Caucus on the Appointments Committee of Parliament has endorsed the Chief Justice (CJ) nominee, Justice Getrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo.

This is in spite of its initial disagreement with the Supreme Court on its judgment annulling the election of James Gyakye Quayson as Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North.

Justice Torkornoo, who was part of the seven-member panel that decided the aforementioned case, faced scrutiny from the Minority when she appeared before the Appointments Committee on May 26.

The Minority had initially insisted that no decision be made on her nomination until the full judgment in the case was released.

But following the release of the full judgment on Monday (June 5), the Minority has now changed its position that it will not withhold the approval of the Chief Justice nominee.

Presser

Speaking on behalf of the Minority at a press conference in Accra yesterday, Mahama Ayariga, who is also the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Bawku Central in the Upper East Region, said the Chief Justice nominee’s Curriculum Vitae revealed that she was a person of considerable experience having served as a judge of the High Court to the Court of Appeal and ultimately the Supreme Court and must not be rejected.

"Women who have acquitted themselves should be given the opportunity to occupy key national offices.

"Even as we disagree with her jurisprudence, we find her qualified to occupy the high office of the Chief Justice," Mr Ayariga said.

Disagreement

Describing her as a textualist, Mr Ayariga said he found her interpretation of Article 94(2) a bit worrying that she chose to abandon the text and rather read meaning into it.

Article 94 (2 A) states: A person shall not be qualified to be a Member of Parliament if he — (a) owes allegiance to a country other than Ghana:

The text goes on to say that such a person would not qualify to be an MP at the time of being sworn in as a Member of Parliament.

The Minority contended that at the time of being sworn in, Mr Quayson had successfully renounced all allegiances to any other country apart from Ghana.

Mr Ayariga said while the Constitution talked about qualification to be sworn in as MP, the Supreme Court replaced that with qualification or the eligibility to contest as MP.