By Beatrice Oppon
Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, in a recent letter to President Akufo-Addo justified the need to appoint additional Justices to the Supreme Court and further proposed names of five Justices of the Court of Appeal for appointment.
Chief Justice Torkornoo in the said letter cited the current number of 15 Justices who are overwhelmed by the workload at the Supreme Court which results in the delay of justice delivery.
This script looks at the data on the work of the Supreme Court in the last five years as explained in the Chief Justice’s correspondence to the President.
Available documents indicate that Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo had prior verbal conversations with the President and the Speaker of Parliament on the need to expand the number of Supreme Court Justices to 20 instead of the current 15 based on available data which showed a consistent backlog of cases.
President Akufo-Addo requested an analysis of the situation which the Chief Justice provided with data last February. The President forwarded the document to the Attorney General and the Ghana Bar Association for advice on the matter and both institutions gave their views on the issue. Further to that, the Chief Justice presented her request to President Akufo-Addo for more Justices at the apex court. The said letter therefore did not sidestep any Constitutional Provision as speculated.
The data which accompanied the Chief Justice’s letter to the President detailed how the Supreme Court panel is constituted in hearing cases. Not less than five justices are empaneled in the exercise of its Appellate or Supervisory Jurisdiction and by seven in the exercise of its Original Jurisdiction in the Interpretation and Enforcement of the Constitution, or Review Jurisdiction.
In an application for review in a Constitutional matter, nine Justices of the Court usually constitute a panel for the hearing of the application. This implies that with the standard average of fifteen Justices, only two panels of five and seven Justices or nine Justices can be constituted. This exhausts the entire number of Justices of the Supreme Court on a sitting day.
The Constitution of the Supreme Court for appeals is further challenged by the recusal of some judges who might have dealt with aspects of the cases during their journey from the courts of first instance up to the apex Court. The consequence of this, which is accompanied by disruption of pre-sitting conferences, post-hearing conferences and hearings, is the continuous reconstitution of panels to enable appeals to be heard.
Additionally, with not less than forty-five cases on the cause list in a week and approximately, one hundred and eighty hearings in a month, each panel of the Court has to operate convenient times for pre-sitting conferences on applications, writs and appeals, and for post-hearing conferences to determine final opinions on each matter before rulings and judgments can be delivered.
These conferences, due to the fewer number of panels that can be constituted, contribute to delays in the work of the Supreme Court. The data also provided graphic statistics of cases from October 2018 to October 2022 legal years. While the statistics reveal a general increase in the cases before the Court over the years under consideration, there is a decreasing trend of cases concluded.
There were 761 pending cases in the 2018/2019 legal year. The court concluded 559 cases with 14 judges. During the 2019/2020 legal year there were 869 cases pending. Out of the number 653 cases were determined with 18 Justices. The 2020/2021 legal year began with 906 cases. A total of 694 cases were concluded with 16 Supreme Court Justices. The 2021/2022 period saw the conclusion of 385 cases out of 799 with 14 judges whereas the 2022/2023 legal year also began with 939 cases with 344 determined by 12 Justices. These created a backlog of 1,648 cases in the years under review.
In view of the realities of the workload and output at the Supreme Court and the need to appropriately serve the justice needs of the country and ensure the speedy setting of cases, the Chief Justice requested the President to consider the appointment of additional Justices to the Supreme Court, to bring the number of Justices of the Supreme Court to twenty.
This will ensure the constitution of three undisturbed panels of five Justices and two panels of seven or nine Justices to work on any set of cases to reduce the specter of constantly reconstituted panels and its effect on pre-hearing conferences and post-hearing conferences.
The Chief Justice cites the example of the federal Supreme Court of America with more than 350 Supreme Court judges, writing only average 65 judgments despite 6000 cases filed, because they can choose and pick cases to work on. On the contrary the Supreme Court in Ghana, according to the Chief Justice does not have the luxury of choosing and picking cases to work with inadequate numbers. Her request to the President is on account of the effective and efficient delivery of justice to the citizenry, and the availability of Judges to carry out their constitutional mandate.
