The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice has granted an application by Deputy Attorney-General Dr Justice Srem Sai to regularise a defence filed out of time in a human rights case brought by former Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo.
When former Chief Justice Gertrude Torkonoo found herself removed from office under Article 146 proceedings of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, she did not go quietly. Convinced that the process had trampled on her fundamental human rights, she took her fight to the Human Rights Court.
But the battle did not end there. Following her subsequent dismissal, Justice Torkonoo carried her case further, this time to the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, amending her application to challenge not just her suspension, but her outright removal from the bench.
The ECOWAS court had earlier allowed that amendment, though not without resistance. The Attorney-General objected, but the court overruled those objections and directed the state to file its defence within 30 days. It was a clear instruction with a firm deadline, March 1, 2026.
The Attorney-General’s office, represented by Deputy Attorney-General Dr Justice Srem Sai, missed it. When the defence was eventually filed, it arrived late, accompanied by a quiet appeal to the court’s discretion to admit it anyway.
Justice Torkonoo’s counsel was having none of it. They argued that the filing was out of time, that no formal application for an extension had ever been made, and urged the court to strike out the defence entirely.
Dr Srem Sai pushed back. His position was that the state had never been properly served with the court’s directive in the first place, that the Attorney-General’s office had been in the dark about the timeline until a hearing notice landed on their desk. Once aware, he told the court, the defence was filed without delay, even with a public holiday interrupting the process. He appealed to the court to act in the interest of justice.
The court was not entirely persuaded by that reasoning. It pointed out that under common law practice, counsel who are present in court when an order is delivered are deemed to have notice of it, no separate service required. It also noted that the proper course of action would have been to file a formal application for an extension of time, not simply attach a request to the late defence.
Counsel for Justice Torkonoo pressed the point further, reminding the court that the directive had been issued in the presence of the Attorney-General’s own representatives, making any claim of ignorance difficult to sustain.
Yet, in a notable turn, Justice Torkonoo’s legal team stopped short of opposing the state’s oral request for an extension. They asked only that, should the court grant it, they be given the opportunity to file a response.
In its ruling, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice granted the extension of time, admitted the state’s amended defence, and gave Justice Torkonoo’s side seven days to file their reply. The procedural battle has been settled, for now. The deeper fight over the former Chief Justice’s removal from office continues.
Source: Apexnewsgh.com