Having Dame present you in court not a smart idea — Franklin Cudjoe tells suspended CJ Torkonoo

Founding President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has criticised suspended Chief Justice Gertrude Esaaba Torkonoo for choosing former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, as her legal representative in a case challenging her removal process.

In a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 21, Justice Torkonoo is seeking 16 reliefs, including an order to reverse her suspension and an interlocutory injunction to stop all proceedings of the five-member committee investigating petitions for her dismissal.

She also asked the apex court to restrain Justices Gabriel Scott Pwamang and Samuel Kwame Adibu-Asiedu from taking part in the proceedings, citing concerns about their impartiality.

Speaking on Accra-based JoyNews after the suit was filed, Mr Dame said he was defending the independence of the judiciary and called on principled citizens to speak out against the removal process.

However, Mr Cudjoe believes the decision to engage Mr Dame was ill-advised, arguing that the former Attorney General was overly partisan and targeted political opponents during his tenure.

“It is not a smart idea for the beleaguered Chief Justice to ask the rabidly partisan former AG and the last regime’s chief persecutor to represent her in her travails in court,” he wrote in a social media post on Thursday.

In an earlier post on Wednesday, he intimated, “Godfred Dame is crying on radio over some fictitious claims of injustice. And he wants good men and women to rise up—says the man who persecuted SALL and other innocent persons! What is KalyJay’s Twitter handle again? Send it to him.”