Former CJ Gertrude Torkornoo challenges her removal at the High Court

• Posted on September 18, 2025September 18, 2025
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Former Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo has filed an application challenging her removal by President John Mahama from both the office of Chief Justice and as a Justice of the Supreme Court.

She contends that the President’s use of the warrant to remove the chief justice from office cannot be extended to remove her as a justice of the Supreme Court.

She’s asking the apex court to declare as null and unconstitutional, the President’s use of the removal warrant on September 1, 2025, which stripped her of both the office of Chief Justice and that of a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature.

Below are the reliefs being sought by former Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo:

(a)A declaration that the President is devoid of power to remove a Justice of the Superior Court from office without recourse to the mandatory procedure set out in Article 146 of the Constitution:

(b) A declaration that jurisdiction to hear a petition for the removal of a Justice of the Superior Court from office lies with a body properly constituted under article 146 (4) of the 1992 Constitution.

c) a declaration that the Warrant of Removal executed by the President dated 1 September, removing the applicant herein from both the office of Chief Justice and 2025 purportedly of the Superior Court of Judicature is unlawful, null, void and of no effect;

(d) an order of certiorari to bring into this Honourable Court for the purpose of being quashed and for quashing the Warrant of Removal dated September 1, 2025 referred to in (c) above, and to quash same as being in violation of the mandatory provisions regarding the removal of a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature from office.

(e) any further order(s) as this Court may deem fit to make.