2025
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This unanimous Supreme Court ruling (per Amadu JSC, with a concurrence by Adjei-Frimpong JSC) dismisses the Honourable Lady Chief Justice’s interlocutory injunction application seeking to restrain a five-member committee set up under Article 146 to inquire into three petitions for her removal and to suspend the presidential warrant of suspension. The Court reaffirmed the exacting public law threshold for injunctions affecting constitutional functions, drawing on Welford Quarcoo, Ransford France, and Assafuah, and held that the Applicant’s depositions—media leaks, an opinion poll, alleged lack of reasons in the prima facie determination, bias and oath challenges—were insufficient. It refined the Moffat principle to clarify that mere filing of an injunction cannot paralyze constitutional actors. Citing Justice Dery and Ghana Bar Association, the Court underscored that Article 146 procedures are constitutionally grounded and in camera by mandate. The application failed on facts and law.
INTRODUCTION:
(1) This application is the fifth in a series of interlocutory injunction applications which inundated this court seeking to halt the constitutional processes following three petitions presented to the President of the Republic for the removal of the Honourable Lady Chief Justice from office pursuant to Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution.
(2) On the 28th day of May 2025, this court heard arguments on the instant application for interlocutory injunction filed by the Honourable Lady Chief Justice (hereinafter referred to as the "Applicant") against the Defendants (hereinafter referred to as the "Respondents"). By unanimous decision, this court dismissed the application and reserved the reasons for the decision. This delivery details my reasons for the position I took in respect of the application.
(3) The reasons herein partly reflect the view I took in an earlier ruling delivered on the 6th of May 2025, following an application for interlocutory injunction in Writ No. J1/18/2025 intituled VINCENT EKOW ASSAFUAH VS. THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, which provoked the determination of the same legal issues as in the instant application. In that majority decision of this Court, which dismissed the said application, I emphasized that, the threshold to injunct the performance of a constitutional or statutory duty or process in the exercise of judicial discretion is not light, as may normally be the case in seeking remedies in interlocutory injunction applications within the realm of private law.
(4) In delivering the lead majority opinion in that application, I relied on the well settled case law regarding injunctions in public law matters as stated in cases like WELFORD QUARCOO VS. ATTORNEY GENERAL AND ANOTHER [2012] 1 SCGLR 259 AND RANSFORD FRANCE (NO.1) VS. ELECTORAL COMMISSION & ATTORNEY-GENERAL [2012] 1 SCGLR 689 and restated the following tests for determining applications for injunctions in matters pertaining to public law. In that case, I held that injunctions in public law matters should be;
i. as a first rule, not be granted to restrain the carrying out of constitutional functions.
ii. be granted sparingly and with extreme circumspection only.
iii. where it is clearly demonstrated that the Applicant’s case is invariably most likely to succeed for a permanent order of injunction on the final determination of the case, and
iv. the*re is exceptional necessity, in the interest of the state and the