THE REPUBLIC v. THE HIGH COURT, (GENERAL JURISDICTION 10) ACCRA & ORS

The Applicant herein, the Attorney-General, was an Interested Party in the Application for Judicial Review in the nature of Prohibition filed by the Petitioners, who are the Respondents in the present application for review. The application for prohibition was dismissed by this Court, and the offending provisions of the Practice Directions on Disclosures and Case Management in Criminal Proceedings, which were relied upon by the trial High Court, were struck down.

The Attorney-General alleges that the decision of the ordinary bench of the Court has rendered it impracticable to conduct criminal cases because it has opened the Pandora's Box of disclosures in every criminal trial.

The grounds for this review application by the Attorney-General are anchored on four main reasons, namely: the fact that the ordinary bench has departed from the previous unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in the case of The Republic v Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie & 4 Others [2017- 2020] 1 SCGLR 32, duly composed of seven (7) Justices solely for the purpose of interpreting the relevant constitutional provision whose decision is binding on the ordinary bench of the Court; the ordinary bench breached the rules of natural justice by not giving the parties the opportunity to be heard on the constitutionality of the Practice Directions; erroneous application of the law by the ordinary bench resulting in fundamental error of law when it applied the law on admission of evidence at trial to the consideration of a request for further disclosures; and finally, the decision has occasioned impracticable or unworkable results.

The review jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is a unique one as it is the only court in Ghana that the Constitution of Ghana, 1992 conferred review jurisdiction on it to exercise in a unique circumstances as provided by the Supreme Court Rules, 1996 (C.I. 16) with a minimum of seven justices of the Court. Article 133 of the Constitution of Ghana, which confers review jurisdiction on the Supreme Court, provides thus:

(1) The Supreme Court may review any decision made or given by it on such grounds and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by rules of court.

(2) The Supreme Court when reviewing its decisions under this article, shall be constituted by not less than seven justices of the Supreme Court.

The Rule 54 of the Supreme Court Rules, 1996 (C.I. 16) has provided strict parameters for review as follows:

The Court may review a