Supreme Court nominee Sir Dennis Dominic Adjei has called for an end to the practice of assigning superior court judges to sit as additional judges in lower courts.
Speaking during his vetting before Parliament’s Appointments Committee, he questioned the necessity of the practice, saying: “We have enough High Court judges… why is it that there is a case to be tried by a High Court judge then you ask a Court of Appeal judge to go and sit?”
He said such appointments, which he claimed do not occur in any other African country, could invite public suspicion and compromise judicial neutrality. “So, to me, that one should be abolished… because of the constitutional analysis that I have made, I think it should be abolished,” he insisted.
Sir Dennis also argued that the Chief Justice should never be made to act as head of the executive. “It’s not advisable,” he said, warning that it would “violate every principle of the rule of law.”
On legal education, he acknowledged challenges with admissions into the Ghana School of Law, despite expanded campuses at GIMPA and KNUST. “Still we have an issue—the issue about admission,” he noted.
Sir Dennis is one of seven Court of Appeal justices nominated by President John Mahama to the Supreme Court under Article 144(2) of the 1992 Constitution.
