Petitions delay vetting of Supreme Court judge - designate Pwamang
The Vetting of President John Mahama’s second nominee to the Supreme Court, Mr Gabriel Pwamang, delayed for close to three hours yesterday due to a petition and a complaint that had been forwarded to the Appointments Committee of Parliament.
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As a result of the delay, the sitting of the Appointments Committee, which was scheduled for 10 a.m., began at 12:25 p.m.
When sitting finally got underway, the Chairman of the committee, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, explained that a meeting was held with the petitioner in camera to get a clearer understanding of the issues raised to determine the way forward.
At the end, he said, it had been decided that the vetting be carried out, while the Committee held on with its final decision on the nominee until the issues had been thrashed out.
Petitions
According to Mr Barton-Odro, the petition was from a pastor in respect of the title to a piece of land which had culminated in the closure of his church on the said land for about 13 months and had prevented the church from holding services during the period.
“The nominee is counsel for the other party in the case,” he said.
Mr Barton-Odro said the other matter was a complaint with the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council.
While alluding to the fact that the Appointments Committee did not have jurisdiction to handle the two issues that had been brought before it, information reaching the committee was that the Legal Council would sit on the matter today, June 4, 2015.
Key Recommendations
Key suggestions made by Mr Pwamang during his vetting regarding Ghana’s justice and legal systems included a holistic review of the criminal justice system and the placement of a ceiling on the number of Supreme Court justices.
Stating that his career objective was to uphold and ensure the maintenance of the Constitution of Ghana and of human rights, Mr Pwamang said, “As a nation, we need to be a bit patient. We cannot abuse the rights of people on the basis of people who have decided not to come and testify or evidence that is not available.”
He asked for a rewriting of the rules to enable the prison officer sending convicted prisoners to court to be able to also hand over remand prisoners who are in the majority at the prisons to the prosecutor for the court to deal with it.
Responding to questions on some of the proposals made by the Constitution Review Commission (CRC), of which he was part, Mr Pwamang said the suggestion to establish the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) as an independent governing body was to ensure that its proposals became binding on all governments.
Another proposal by the CRC was to remove that injunction which said that majority of the ministers must be taken from Parliament.
“So the proposal was that the hands of the President should be freed and the President may appoint ministers from out of Parliament or from Parliament”he said.
He said that way, the President would be able to keep a balance depending on the resources available to him.
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