The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said it is deeply troubled by the recent public utterances of the Chief Justice, His Lordship Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, in which he sought to justify his decision to issue warrants to two High Court judges, Justices Achibonga and Kocuvie-Tay, to conduct full criminal trials during the legal vacation.
The NPP noted that every one of the affected cases is a prosecution of persons associated with their party.
” The Party finds his defence unconvincing, legally unreasonable and revealing of the very partisan disposition it seeks to deny,” a statement issued by General Secretary Justin Kodua Frimpong said.
The statement further said that in line with conventional practices, twenty-nine courts are currently sitting as vacation courts.
A vacation court does not sit for its own business alone; it takes on the business of several other courts, it said.
It further explained that General Jurisdiction 2 at the Law Court Complex, for instance, is handling cases from GJ 1 through GJ 7. Tamale Court A is serving the High Courts in Tamale, Wa and Nalerigu, while the Goaso High Court is serving Sunyani, Wenchi, Goaso and Techiman. In all of them, it said, the settled practice is the same.
“Their business is limited to motions and urgent interlocutory applications, which are heard virtually. A vacation judge will not entertain substantive business, and even case management conferences are routinely declined. Yet out of these twenty-nine courts, only two have been singled out and granted special warrants to conduct full criminal trials requiring the physical appearance of accused persons and counsel, whether or not counsel can attend. The Chief Justice has failed to answer one simple question. Why only these two courts, and why only these cases?
“We note that cases of murder, rape, narcotics, armed robbery and every other felony stand adjourned until the vacation ends, as they always have. If the vacation can pause the trial of a murder suspect, why can it not pause the trial of political opponents of the Government? This selective urgency shows that the object is not justice but the incarceration of NPP personalities, in the same indecent haste with which the trial of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako (Wontumi), was rushed to conviction,” the statement said.
It further noted that the Chief Justice has been petitioned, yet he will not budge.
By letters dated 5th August 2026, counsel for the accused persons, including Messrs Zoe, Akyea & Co. and Messrs Dame & Partners, formally informed him of their unavailability during the vacation and asked him to withdraw the warrants.
On 10th August 2026, the Ghana Bar Association also wrote to him, reminding him that vacation courts do not conduct trials, particularly where counsel have given notice of their unavailability, and that a court cannot fairly proceed with a trial in the absence of counsel.
“All these letters are public. Yet the warrants stand, and the Chief Justice has instead gone public to defend the indefensible, treating the united voice of the Bar with such disdain,” the statement said.
It further said that the consequences played out in open court today. Tuesday, August 11, when one of the two vacation trial judges, fully aware that defence counsel had given notice of their unavailability, adjourned the matter for less than one week and gave the accused person an impossible ultimatum.
“Find a new lawyer within days, or personally conduct the cross-examination of the prosecution witness, failing which the witness would be permanently discharged. The judge further indicated that he would continue to sit until the Chief Justice revokes the warrant. Article 19(2)(f) of the 1992 Constitution guarantees every accused person the right to defend himself by counsel of his own choosing. What happened today was not case management. It was the strangulation of the fair trial rights of a citizen, and it flows directly from the Chief Justice’s warrants.
“The public should recall the route by which His Lordship came to office. His elevation followed the unprecedented and contested removal of Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, which the Party maintains was orchestrated for political ends and which remains in litigation. His confirmation was pushed through over the objection and walkout of the Minority in Parliament. He is, in every practical sense, the product of a partisan route to office. Even so, the NPP expected him to act with strict independence, as the Constitution demands. Instead, his conduct in facilitating these selective trials,in apparent concert with the Attorney-General’s agenda against NPP personalities, betrays that expectation. The Judiciary must never become an annex of the Office of the Attorney-General,” it said.
The NPP indicated that judicial power, like executive power, is held in trust for the people of Ghana. Article 125(1) of the Constitution declares that justice emanates from the people.,” it said.
“Those who exercise judicial power today must be mindful that they will be held to account for how they use it. Retirement from office confers no immunity from that accountability. History, and where appropriate the law, will render its verdict. The New Patriotic Party therefore calls on the Chief Justice to immediately withdraw the warrants for vacation trials so that the affected cases resume, like all others, when the legal term reopens; to heed the petition of the Ghana Bar Association and restore the settled practice governing vacation courts; to ensure that today’s ultimatum to the accused is rescinded, since no person may be compelled to stand trial without counsel of his own choosing; and to stop defending in public decisions that are the subject of legitimate professional protest, allowing his conduct to be judged by its fidelity to the Constitution alone.”
The NPP said it remains committed to the rule of law, the independence of the Judiciary and the equality of all persons before the law.
“We shall resist, by every lawful means, the weaponisation of the courts against our members and against any Ghanaian.”
