Renowned US-based Ghanaian lawyer and scholar, Prof Stephen Kwaku Asare, has reacted to a claim by former Attorney General Godfred Dame that the Acting Chief Justice, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, should not have been part of the Supreme Court panel that presided over the suit challenging the constitutionality of the suspension of Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, by President John Dramani Mahama.
In a post shared on Facebook on May 6, 2025, Prof Kwaku Asare, who is widely known as Kwaku Azar, without mentioning names, said that Dame's assertion that Justice Baffoe-Bonnie was the only person in the world who stood to benefit from the suspension of Justice Torkornoo and should not have been part of the panel that heard the case, was far-fetched.
He explained that the accusation against the Acting Chief Justice has no legal backing because he is only in the role due to his position as the most senior Supreme Court judge, and that there is nothing which shows that he (Baffoe-Bonnie) will be made the substantive Chief Justice if Justice Torkornoo is eventually dismissed. "The claim that the Acting Chief Justice has a personal interest in the outcome of the petitions seeking the removal of the Chief Justice is difficult to sustain - both legally and logically. "The Acting Chief Justice assumes that role not by personal ambition or executive discretion, but by operation of constitutional command.
Article 144(6) of the 1992 Constitution is unequivocal: 'Where the office of Chief Justice is vacant or the Chief Justice is, for any reason, unable to perform the functions of his office, those functions shall be performed by the most senior of the Justices of the Supreme Court.' The acting role is a function of seniority and circumstance-not personal choice," Kwaku Azar wrote.
