ARTICLE: Justice Gabriel Scott Pwamang, chair of the Chief Justice probe committee, is conflicted

The Supreme Court justice whom President John Dramani Mahama has appointed to chair the five-member committee mandated to investigate allegations levelled against the Chief Justice of the Republic, Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, faces a conflict of interest, and ought to be replaced.

Justice Gabriel Scott Pwamang, who is currently the second most senior Supreme Court judge in Ghana (if you include the suspended Chief Justice in the count), or the most senior justice of the Supreme Court after the acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie (if one excludes the suspended Chief Justice), is the chair of the five-member committee.

The committee’s other members are Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu-Asiedu, a justice of the Supreme Court; Daniel Yaw Domelevo, a former auditor general; Major Flora Bazwaanura Dalugo, an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces; and Professor James Sefah Dzisah, an associate professor at the University of Ghana.

Allegations

One of the five petitioners whose petitions constitute the grounds for the Chief Justice probe is Daniel Ofori.

His petition first alleges that: “In 2023, the Honourable Chief Justice misappropriated the sum of GHC261,890 of public funds for the benefit of the Chief Justice for her private foreign travel with her husband, Mr Francis Kofi Torkornoo, and her daughter Miss Edem S A Torkornoo and US$30,000 in per diem allowance when, to her knowledge, neither the husband of the Chief Justice nor the Chief Justice’s daughter were entitled to have their travel or any travel allowances paid for out of the funds of the Judicial Service.”

Second, “In 2023, the Honourable Chief Justice misappropriated GHS75,580 from public funds to purchase Ethiopian Airlines tickets for the Honourable Chief Justice and her husband during Her Ladyship’s vacation to Arusha, Tanzania.”

Third, “In 2023, Her Ladyship the Honourable Chief Justice obtained from the Judicial Service an accountable imprest in the sum of $14,000 to the Honourable Chief Justice to travel with her husband to Arusha, Tanzania, which she failed to retire.”

“Bad faith”

Ofori also alleges that the Chief Justice – in bad faith and arbitrarily and unreasonably – transferred the execution proceedings initiated on the directions of the Supreme Court before the High Court (Commercial Division 7) Accra, presided over by His Lordship Justice Lodoh, in a suit entitled Daniel Ofori v Ecobank Ghana Limited numbered CM/MISC/0829/2021, from that high court to the High Court General Jurisdiction – 8 Accra, presided over by Her Ladyship Justice Ellen Mireku, simply to achieve a result that she had sought unsuccessfully to achieve when sitting in the Supreme Court as a member of the panel in Daniel Ofori v Ecobank (suit numbers J8/114/2020 and J7/13/2020, dated 24 March 2021) and after receiving a petition from the lawyer for the judgment debtor/respondent in suit number CM/MISC/0829/2021, “in respect of which petition, she did not give the lawyer for the judgment creditor/applicant an opportunity to be heard”.

Daniel Ofori further alleges: “The Chief Justice abused the power of the Chief Justice to transfer cases pending before one judge to another judge by ordering a transfer of a suit entitled Ecobank v Daniel Ofori (suit numbered GJ 0902/23) from the High Court (General Jurisdiction 6) presided over by Her Ladyship Justice Buansi Amponsah to the High Court (General Jurisdiction 8) presided over by Her Ladyship Justice Mireku simply because she did not like a decision given by Justice Buansi Amponsah to dismiss the suit, which ran counter to dissenting opinions of Her Ladyship as a member of the panel of the Supreme Court in Daniel Ofori v Ecobank (suits numbered J8/114/2020 and J7/13/2020) dated 24 March 2021).”

The conflict-of-interest situation arises from the fact that Justice Gabriel Pwamang, in the case of Daniel Ofori v Ecobank Ghana Ltd and two others, served as a judge on the five-member panel that adjudicated the case. Justice Pwamang also authored the court judgment on 25 July 2018. The panel was presided over by Justice Jones Dotse (rtd) and it included Justices Anin Yeboah (rtd), Paul Baffoe-Bonnie and Yaw Appau (rtd).

In sum, Justice Gabriel Pwamang authored the judgment and also served as a judge on the five-member panel which heard a case that is the subject of one of the three petitions against Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo. He is also supposed to lead efforts to probe the petition. This creates a clear conflict of interest that should concern the appointing authority (President John Dramani Mahama).

There are about ten additional Supreme Court justices, apart from the acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, Justice Gabriel Pwamang and Justice Samuel Asiedu, who can serve on the Chief Justice probe committee. President Mahama ought to do the needful forthwith.

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