A group calling itself Citizens of La Home and Abroad has petitioned the president John Evans Atta Mills to suspend the Chief Justice (CJ), Georgina Theodora Wood. According to the group the president in consultation with the Council of State must immediately suspend the CJ to make way for the empaneling of a commission to investigate matters in which the CJ has been implicated. Speaking to Joy News on Friday a member of the group, Prince Derick Adjei, said it is not happy with the manner in which the CJ has in time past handled requests by other Ga-Dangme groups to return to them lands acquired by Government. It believes Madam Georgina Wood must step aside for investigations to start immediately because justice has been denied them for far too long. But responding to the issues, legal practitioner Kofi Abotsi said the group is wrong. He said the group must rather invoke the necessary legal processes at the courts instead of petitioning the presidency. “It is useful for us to know that the Chief Justice is just a citizen of Ghana like any other person," he said. He said while the CJ could acquire property that might turn out to have a legal dispute on it, that must not amount to a conflict of interest situation, even if she empanels a committee to deal with the matter. The call for the dismissal of the CJ has been intense since the Mills-led administration took office some four months ago. Sympathisers of the ruling party claim Madam Wood might interfere in judicial processes involving the political parties, to the detriment of the NDC. But members of the opposition NPP argue the oath swearing by the CJ during her investiture must make her disinterested in cases, no matter which entities are involved. Madam Wood was appointed by the erstwhile Kufuor administration and has since engagement presided over cases including the popular MV Benjamin cocaine saga and the prosecution of the former GNPC boss Tsatsu Tsikata. President Mills is yet to respond to the petition. Story by Fiifi Koomson/Joy News