The recent petitions calling for the removal of the Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, have sparked conversations about judicial independence and the the executive influence over the judiciary.
While her fate remains uncertain, history is a reminder of a precedent in 1963, when Ghana’s first African Chief Justice of the Gold Coast, Sir Kobina Arku Korsah, was removed from office by Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
According to a report by ghanaianmuseum.com, in 1962, Sir Arku Korsah presided over a trial of suspects involved in the Kulungugu Bomb Attack, which was a failed assassination attempt on Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
In December 1963, Sir Arku Korsah delivered a verdict acquitting three of the accused persons.
This verdict reportedly displeased the Nkrumah administration.
The Edward Ulzen Memorial Foundation further noted that the not guilty verdict came as a surprise to Dr Nkrumah, prompting a swift reaction, with his removal from office condemned by Dr Nkrumah’s allies domestically and internationally.
“When, on December 11, 1963, the Chief Justice Sir Arku Korsah announced a verdict of not guilty, it came as a bombshell to Nkrumah. He swiftly over-reacted. Two days after the verdict, he dismissed the Chief Justice and rushed a bill through the Assembly which gave the president the power, in the national interest, to set aside any judgement in the country’s courts.
“This rapid demolition of the independence of the judiciary did more than anything else to convince the world that Nkrumah had embarked on a course leading to dictatorship. Protests flooded in from Britain and America, and even Nkrumah’s most loyal supporters grew alarmed. Cyril Lionel Robert James, who, in 1962, had publicly thanked Nkrumah for being the greatest leader in the emancipation of Africa, now chided him publicly and privately,” it noted.
It continued, “James had previously warned him to investigate the reasons why people wanted to kill him and, very shrewdly, had asked if the people around him were telling him the truth. Now, in an anguished appeal, James said ‘You cannot dismiss your Chief Justice… You must go and make a public apology.”
He concluded by saying that if the Chief Justice was dismissed ‘You dismiss all of us’, adding that this action further sullied Nkrumah’s reputation both at home and abroad.
Sir Arku Korsah was born at Saltpond and attended the Mfantsipim School, Fourah Bay College, the Durham University and London University, where he earned his LLB in 1919.
He passed away on January 25, 1967.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
