Former Attorney General and lawyer for Gertrude Torkornoo, Ayikoi Otoo, has hit back at President John Mahama’s decision to remove the Chief Justice from office.

The former ambassador to Canada described it as punishment for nothing more than following laid-down rules.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Monday, September 1, Ayikoi Otoo rejected the grounds of “stated misbehaviour” cited by the President, arguing that the Chief Justice only applied for her vacation as part of her entitlements and followed established procedure.

“When these entitlements come, it is not for you to determine anything. You are just to determine whether you want to travel. So when you tell them that I intend to take my vacation in Arusha, Tanzania, then the officers will work on whatever is your entitlement and bring it to you.

"This is nothing new. As Attorney General, as an ambassador, that is what they do. They work out and bring it to you. You are not involved.”

He said the Chief Justice did nothing wrong when she requested to travel.

“So it is for them to look at the policy. What is the policy? Are you entitled to per diem? They will tell you yes, you are entitled to per diem. If you are travelling with somebody, is that person also entitled to some per diem? They say yes, and so they are working and bringing it to you. What wrong did the Chief Justice commit for asking to go on a usual vacation as part of the conditions of service and saying that, well, I intend to go to Arusha?”

According to him, the Judicial Service had a clear travel policy that allowed a Chief Justice to travel with a companion of choice, and the committee ignored this fact.

“There is a foreign policy or travel policy of the judiciary; they never referred to it. They didn’t refer to it, although we tendered it. That look, this is the travel policy. She’s entitled to travel with one person of her own choice, and she chose to do this.

"Remember that there have been other Chief Justices, some of them who had no spouses, and therefore the law, as at the time, was that you could go with, if it’s not your spouse, any person of your own choice.

"And so what wrong did the Chief Justice commit? Was she the one who asked that she should be given travel expenses? Is she not entitled to the travel expenses?”

He further questioned why her removal was based on an entitlement process handled by other officers and not the Chief Justice herself.

“As I keep asking, when you are in that office and you have to travel, is it for you to determine I want this or that? It is for the organisation to work on it and give it to you. Assuming it was wrongly given to you, is that not why you have an audit? Is it not the case for auditors to say that we think that you should be surcharged with a certain amount, which you took unlawfully? Is it a ground for removal?”

He stressed that management letters regarding expenditures were addressed to the Judicial Secretary, who is the spending officer, and not the Chief Justice.

“Are you the one who is the spending officer, when the letters were actually even management letters and whatever was sent to the judicial secretary, who is the spending officer? And no wrongdoing, no surcharge.”

Ayikoi Otoo said he was stunned by the committee’s findings.

“I’m surprised Domelovo was on it. He sat through it. He heard us. We made presentations to him. And he, in the midst of all, in the face of all this, comes out to say that she has misappropriated money. Which money?”

The former Attorney General insisted that Gertrude Torkornoo was removed unjustly, punished not for misbehaviour but for following the very rules that governed her office.