Africa-Press – Ghana. President John Dramani Mahama has removed Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo from office on the grounds of misconduct and stated misbehaviour.
A letter signed by Callistus Mahama, Secretary to the President on September 1, 2025 said: “the President, upon a careful assessment of the petition, your response to the petition, and the advice of the council of state, determined that a prema facie case had been made against you in respect of Mr Daniel Ofori’s petition.”
The President in accordance with Article 146 (6) and in consultation with the Council of State constituted a five-member Committee chaired by Justice Gabriel Scot Pwamang (Justice of the Supreme) to inquire into the petition against Justice Torkornoo.
Chief Justice Torkornoo was thereafter suspended from office, and she faced the five-member committee set to look into various petitions against her.
On September 1, 2025, the committee presented its report to President Mahama and recommended the removal of Chief Justice Torkornoo.
Under Article 146 (9) of the Constitution, the President is mandatorily required to act in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee.
“Consequently, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana has, by Warrant of Removal under his hand and the Presidential Seal, effected your removal from Office as Chief Justice and Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana with effect from the date of the warrant,” the letter said.
The warrant reads: “I John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, in pursuance of the said Article 146 (9), do hereby REMOVE the said Chief Justice, Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, from the office of Chief Justice and Justice of the Supreme Court, with effect from the date hereof.
The committee in its opinion held that the travel expenses which Chief Justice heaped on the Judicial Service when she travelled on holidays in September 2023, first to Tanzania with her husband and second to the United States of America with her daughter, together with the payment of per diem to the spouse and daughter, constituted “ Unlawful expenditure of public funds” and same could not be justified in law or policy.
“Those acts constituted avoidable and reckless dissipation of public funds and, in the view of the committee, to have occasioned by overall head of the Judiciary, the Judicial Service, whose duty it is to guard public resources allocated by government, is caught within the spectrum of stated misbehaviour.”
The letter indicated that the committee held Chief Justice Torkornoo unjustifiably breached the provisions in Article 296 (a) and (b) of the 1992 Constitution.
According to the letter, the Chief Justice could not lay claim to “ignorance of the nomination process, and procedure, notwithstanding the fact that that the process and procedure are not spelt out in the Constitution but case law.
The appointment of the Chief Justice herself as Justice of the Supreme Court went through the very process and procedure set out in the Ghana Bar Association case. Therefore, to seek, wittingly, to outwit this known process and procedure for appointing Supreme Court Justices amounts to misbehaviour in the eyes of the Committee and the Committee finds it as such.”
The letter said, “In view of the findings of the Committee in paragraphs 1.9, 3.4, 6.7,7.5, and 9.5 above the Committee recommends to the President in accordance with Article 146 (7) and 9.5 of the Constitution, that Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo ought to be REMOVED from Office.”
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