We Must Demand Explanations From Justice John Nyadu’s Court On Quo Warranto Ruling On 15 April 2026

The High Court, Accra, (General Jurisdiction 10) made two rulings on 15 April 2026. The first ruling appears to be out of the blue when an oral application was made to the Court by the lawyer for the Applicant and responded to by lawyer for the Respondent. The second ruling which is the ruling on the substantive application for quo warranto had been written in advance by the High Court Judge despite the fact that he had on 9 March 2026 adjourned the continuation of the substantive quo warranto application sine die to await the decision of the Supreme Court in the Noah Ephraim Tetteh Adamtey v Attorney-General case.

Any reasonable person reading the Certified True Copy of the first ruling dated 17 April 2026 containing the oral application by the lawyer of the Applicant and the resultant substantive ruling on the main application for quo warranto on the same day will notice the absence of any legal basis for the Court convening that day. This first ruling raises serious questions about the transparency and accountability of the second ruling, in which the Court determined that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) had no delegated authority to prosecute corruption and corruption-related offences under the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act 2017 (Act 959) on behalf of the Attorney-General by virtue of Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution.

Mr. Justice John Eugene Nyante Nyadu of the High Court, Accra, on 9 March 2026, when the parties appeared before him in the quo warranto application, adjourned the proceedings sine die. At the time, the Court was aware that another related application was pending before the High Court, Accra, (Criminal Division 1). The criminal matter continued on 10 March 2026, and after hearing the parties, the Court adjourned the case to 15 April 2026 without a ruling on the application for stay of proceedings.

On 15 April 2026, the same date to which the criminal matter had been adjourned, Mr. Justice Nyadu’s Court which had previously adjourned the quo warranto proceedings sine die, also reconvened. The first ruling delivered that day by Mr. Justice Nyadu does not disclose the authority upon which the Court sat to hear the oral application nor the legal basis empowering the learned Judge to deliver the substantive ruling that same day, effectively nullifying the prosecutorial powers of the OSP by virtue of Article 88 of the Constitution.

Did Justice Nyadu’s Court direct the issuance of hearing notices to the parties in the quo warranto application to appear before it on 15 April 2026 or was it the Applicant who issued a hearing notice to the parties to appear before his Court on that day? The public needs transparent and accountable answers to the foregoing because a Court that adjourns the hearing of a case sine die cannot reconvene out of the blue and create a situation where an already written substantive ruling is delivered by the Judge in the case the same day.

For the sake of “doubting Thomases” I quote, inter alia, the following as what transpired when the case was called on 15 April 2026 as disclosed by the Certified True Copy of the first ruling dated 15 April 2026 and the ruling by Mr. Justice Nyadu, to enable a better appreciation by the public why transparency and accountability is needed on how the case was handled:

“COUNSEL FOR THE APPLICANT: My Lord respectfully we were before you on the 9^th March, 2026 and the matter was adjourned sine die to await the decision from the Supreme Court. My Lord today is the 15^th April, 2026 and nothing has happened. My Lord I wish to reiterate that the adjournment on 9^th March, 2026 was instigated by the respondent. My Lord the following day when we went to the Criminal Court, where we had applied for the stay of proceedings pending the determination of the present case here in this court, the respondent in approbation and reprobation vehemently opposed the application for stay of proceedings pending the determination of the present suit. My Lord a lot of water has passed under the bridge and I hold the view that we are not party to the suit in the Supreme Court and the breaches complained of is a continuing one. My Lord quo warranto concerns on lawful occupation or exercise of public authority. Each day the respondent continues to exercise prosecutorial authority without lawful authorization constitutes a continuous usurpation of public office. In effect, a fresh cause of action arises daily and my Lord this action must be brought to a conclusion. In that regards, I pray that this honourable court exercises its inherent powers and bring this matter to conclusion. I pray accordingly.”

I will skip the submission by the Respondent’s lawyers and other arguments and quote in full Mr. Justice Nyadu’s ruling on this first oral application as follows:

“BY COURT: The proceedings in this court was suo motu stayed to avoid a situation where a decision was given which might run contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court. However upon reflection and upon listening to the submission of counsel for the applicant, I am of the opinion that his court can go ahead and deliver its ruling and so I do so accordingly. Parties to apply for the reasoned ruling.”

Mr. Justice Nyadu acknowledges that the proceedings were stayed suo motu “to avoid a situation where a decision was given which might run contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court.” The question that naturally arises is: what changed legally and procedurally to justify the abrupt reversal of that position? Mr. Justice Nyadu’s Court is not a Kadi Court sitting under a tree dispensing justice at whim but a court of law governed by settled rules and procedures.

Mr. Justice Nyadu cheats the intelligence of the public when he gives the impression in his ruling above that his first ruling on 15 April 2026 which allowed him to deliver the twenty-three-page substantive ruling on the quo warranto application was made on the spur of the moment “upon reflection” and “upon listening to the submission of counsel for the applicant.” Mr. Justice Nyadu could not have come to his Court on 15 April 2026 already armed with the written twenty-three-page ruling he intended to deliver in the substantive application he had adjourned on 9 March 2026 sine die in disobedience to his own order to await the decision of the Supreme Court “to avoid a situation where a decision was given which might run contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court” without a prior planning and premeditation. This is the only circumstance in which he could have conjured his 23-page ruling in the substantive case on 15 April 2026 as though he was a magician conjuring the second ruling from the magician’s hat immediately after the first ruling.

Mr. Justice Nyadu’s personal reflections do not constitute the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2004 (C.I 47) upon which he could have overruled his own order adjourning the proceedings on 9 March 2026 sine die and then without indicating any law on which he was reversing himself, deliver the ruling in the substantive quo warranto application on 15 April 2026.

Mr. Justice Nyadu’s conduct without an explanation to the public opens the floodgates for speculation as to whether he was acting at the behest of some other person or body of persons and for extra-judicial reasons. Mr. Justice Nyadu’s conduct does not measure up to the settled standards of judicial conduct, which is why the public must demand explanations for his ruling in the substantive quo warranto application in the environment and circumstances he made it on 15 April 2026.

I have read the “Originating Motion (Application in the nature of quo warranto)” and the “Affidavit in support of the application in the nature of quo warranto” deposed to by the Applicant, Peter Archibold Hyde, filed in the High Court on 30 January 2026 umpteen times. I restate and affirm again that it does not disclose jurisdiction in Mr. Justice Nyadu’s Court or any other High Court to have entertained the application in the first place. The originating application was never amended to give jurisdiction to the Court and nothing that came to the notice of Mr. Justice Nyadu at the hearing could have cured the defect in the application to give him jurisdiction to entertain the case.

When one adds the court’s lack of jurisdiction to entertain the application to the conduct of the learned Judge in the handling of the case on 15 April 2026 alarm bells begin to ring as to the underlying extra-judicial reasons or reflection that might have influenced the quo warranto ruling on 15 April 2026. In an article I published in the Review of Ghana Law long before I declined my nomination to Supreme Court in 1999, I quoted Mr. Justice Benjamin Cardozo’s admonitions to Judges of the common law traditions in his “The Nature of the Judicial Process” as follows:

“The judge, even when he is free, is still not wholly free. He is not to innovate at pleasure. He is not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness. He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles. He is not to yield to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence. He is to exercise a discretion informed by tradition, methodized by analogy, disciplined. by system, and subordinated to ‘the primordial necessity of order in the social life. Wide enough in all conscience is the, field of discretion that remains.” (See page 141 thereof).

Without any further explanation for the conduct of Mr. Justice Nyadu’s Court in entertaining the quo warranto application, and the sudden extra-judicial “reflection” that changed his mind to deliver a ruling which he conjured immediately after hearing an oral application from the lawyer for the Applicant on 15 April 2026, one is entitled to believe that the learned High Court Judge yielded “to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence” and/or other self-serving extra-judicial reflections based purely on self-interest.

Ghanaians must remember that under the watch of the Attorney-General an “Animal Farm” Circuit Judge was recalled from retirement and promoted to the High Court apparently for services rendered as a reason citizens must defend the Constitution by demanding explanations for inexplicable and suspicious judicial conduct. Let us put Ghana First!

Martin A. B. K. Amidu 28 April 2026

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