Parliament Okays President’s Supreme Court Justice Nominees | General News

Parliament on Friday [Dec 22, 2023] approved the President’s nominee Justices to the Supreme Court.

The trio are Justice Henry Anthony Kwofie, Justice Yaw Darko Asare and Justice Richard Adjei-Frimpong.

The approval of the trio came after the House unanimously had adopted the 33rd report of the Appointments Committee on the nominees.

The three Justices of the Court of Appeal were vetted by the Appointments Committee last Wednesday [December 20].

Knowledge and dexterity

The Chairman of the committee, Joseph Osei-Owusu, who is also the First Deputy Speaker, presented the committee’s report on the floor on Friday and moved a motion for the House to adopt the committee’s recommendation to approve them by consensus.

He said the nominees demonstrated knowledge and dexterity in the law and their areas of practice during their vetting.

“The committee, therefore, recommends to the House by consensus the adoption of its report and approval of the three,” he said.

Views on SC appointments

During the vetting of the trio, one common interest members of the 25-members sought the views of the appointees was their opinions on the increase of the number of the Justice of the apex court.

They all justified the appointments of Justices to the Supreme Court given the heavy workload being handled by court.

First to express such support was Mr Justice Kwofie who said the wide jurisdiction of the court made the current number of justices insufficient.

He said the SC currently had 12 justices with only two panels as it sits in fives.

He added that if the committee should give him and the other two nominees the nod for appointment, the SC would have three panels of judges instead of two.

When his opinion was sought on whether there should be a capping on the number of the judges that should be appointed to the SC, Mr Adjei-Frimpong concurred.

He said even though he considered the expenditure incurred in the compensation of the Supreme Court judges was significant, it was his view that there should be some flexibility in handling the issue.

He said as of July 2023, the number of cases pending in the Supreme Court was 595 which was indicative of the human constraints facing the court.

“The Supreme Court is working tirelessly to adjudicate cases brought before it and the situation is driven by the increased number of caseloads at the court,” he said.