Former Director of the Ghana School of Law, Kwaku Ansah Asare has criticised the Supreme Court over the rulings delivered by the Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkonoo regarding the vacant Parliamentary seats.

According to him, the apex court did not go by the rules of the game.

In an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story on October 30, he explained that their jurisdiction was not properly evoked when the Speaker, Alban Bagbin made the ruling of declaring the seats vacant.

Read also: We’re living in a country where Parliament isn’t sitting, what’s going on? – Chief Justice

“The ruling is yet another example of our current Supreme Court living up to its accolade as an all too predictable court… their jurisdiction was not properly evoked and today the Chief Justice has been heard saying that the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was invoked when the Speaker made the ruling.

“Let me correct that erroneous impression – the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court can never be evoked after the Speaker has made a ruling in the Chamber. The Supreme Court’s long arms do not reach out to the Chamber of Parliament and therefore whatever the Speaker says on the floor will never constitute a proper invocation of the Supreme Court,” he explained.

This follows the Supreme Court dismissing an application by the Speaker of Parliament, who sought to overturn the Court’s ruling that suspended his declaration of four parliamentary seats as vacant.

The Chief Justice maintained that its earlier ruling was appropriate, stating that the Speaker’s appeal was without merit.

"We have considered the application, and we have come to the conclusion that the grounds supporting the application have no merit," the Chief Justice stated.

Commenting on the Chief Justice’s comment over having reparable damage done to the thousands of constituents in the 4 constituencies, if the Speaker's action had not stayed and the Supreme Court cannot sit on the fence over that, Mr Ansah Asare disagreed with the pronouncement.

“I beg to differ. As far as I am concerned, those pronouncements of the Chief Justice raise the all-important question of when the court can discern into the arena of politics.”

According to Mr Ansah Asare, what the Supreme Court did was a detention into the arena of politics.

“We are wrong, some of these pronouncements will do more harm than good. We have a crucial election next month. This is not the time for Justices of the Supreme Court appointed by the ruling government to say thank you outgoing government. We are sick and tired.”

He further stated that Supreme Court has no business entering the arena of Parliament noting that if the constituents of the MPs affected had grievances, they should channel their outburst to the MPs who knew the political consequences of the game they are playing.

However, the Chairman of the Constitutional and Legal Committee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Frank Davies, has expressed disagreement with comments made by Mr. Ansah Asare, describing them as “unfortunate.”

He criticised the remarks about the Supreme Court's predictability, arguing that such a statement from a senior legal figure is inappropriate.

He emphasized that if Ansah Asare disagrees with the Supreme Court's decisions, his criticism should be grounded in legal principles.

Mr Davies further questioned whether Asare expects the Supreme Court to consider only one side of a case and deliver judgments that lack legal justification.

“Mr Ansah Ansah, a senior lawyer to come on radio and say that the SC has become as predictable, I mean, it is unfortunate.”