Supreme Court has been abusing its power of contempt – Sosu tells Chief Justice nominee Torkornoo

The Member of Parliament for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has accused the Supreme Court of Ghana of abusing its power of contempt.

According to him, it is only in Ghana that the supreme court summons people who make comments that are dimmed disapproving.

Lawyer Sosu, who made these remarks during the vetting of Chief Justice Nominee, Gertrude Araba Esaaba Torkornoo, added that practice is an abuse of the power of the Supreme Court and amounts to the court shielding itself from criticism.

“… my third and final question has to do with what I respectfully consider the abuse of the power of contempt by the supreme court. I am saying this because, in any open democracy, the only way to hold people accountable is to speak about them.

“But there has been a trend that is novel because when I was coming here, I tried to look at other jurisdictions in the US, Canada, UK to see whether there has been a practice where people are cited for contempt for marking “disparaging” comment about supreme court judgements, I never saw any.

“Now, my fear is that in our democracy… the practice where the Supreme Court consistently is summoning people before it because of expression of opinion on their judgement with all due respect I believe that it is an abuse of the power of contempt,” he said.