Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has challenged the urgency surrounding the proposed vetting of three nominees for appointment to the Supreme Court, arguing that there is currently no vacancy on the apex court to justify what he described as a compressed parliamentary timetable.
Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has challenged the urgency surrounding the proposed vetting of three nominees for appointment to the Supreme Court, arguing that there is currently no vacancy on the apex court to justify what he described as a compressed parliamentary timetable.
Mr Afenyo-Markin objected on Thursday, August 27, 2026, when the Appointments Committee began the vetting of the three nominees nominated by President John Dramani Mahama.
He stressed that the Minority’s position should not be interpreted as opposition to either the nominees or the President’s constitutional authority to make appointments to the Supreme Court.
Rather, he said the objection was directed at the procedure and the speed with which Parliament was being asked to consider the nominations.
“This is not an objection to the principle of vetting. It is an objection to the nominee; neither is it an objection to the nominees as individuals. It is an objection grounded in the Constitution, the 1992 Constitution and the standing orders of Parliament,” he said.
‘No vacancy, no urgency’
At the heart of the Minority’s objection, Mr Afenyo-Markin said, was the absence of a vacant seat on the Supreme Court.
“We advance nine grounds. Each stands independently. Together they are, in our respectful submission conclusive: one, ground one, that there is no vacancy and therefore no exigency capable of justifying a compressed timetable,” he said.
“Chairman, the Supreme Court of Ghana presently sits with its full complement of justices. No seat on the bench is vacant.”
According to him, the three nominees were being considered as additions to the existing membership of the court rather than replacements necessitated by the death, retirement or removal of serving justices.
“The three persons before this committee are nominated to add to the existing membership of the court, not to fill any gap left by death, retirement or removal,” he stated.
He argued that the distinction was important because the justification for accelerating the process appeared to be based on urgency.
“This matters because the entire justification offered for compressing the ordinary voting timetable is urgency. Urgency requires an urgent state of affairs where no vacancy exists,” he said.
Mr Afenyo-Markin therefore challenged the Majority to demonstrate the specific consequences of delaying the appointments and subjecting the nominees to what he described as the normal scrutiny associated with Supreme Court appointments.
“The committee is respectfully urged to require the majority to identify precisely and on record what harm befalls a state, the judiciary, or any litigant if these three additional appointments are averted with the same care that would ordinarily attend any Supreme Court nomination,” he said.
“We submit that no such harm can be shown because none exists.”
Three-day timetable questioned
The Minority Leader also questioned the decision to complete the process within a period he said left only three sitting days for Parliament to consider the matter.
He maintained that the accelerated process was inconsistent with the established practice for Supreme Court nominations since the adoption of the 1992 Constitution.
“We submit that since 1992, all Supreme Court nominees have gone through the regular period of notice where this committee advertises in the dailies for two weeks,” he said.
He further questioned whether the mere announcement of the President’s nominations in Parliament should trigger an immediate vetting and voting process within a matter of days.
“It must not be that just Monday when Mr. Speaker announced the nomination as received from the President, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Parliament is supposed to vote,” he said.
Mr Afenyo-Markin emphasised that the Minority was not questioning President Mahama’s constitutional mandate to nominate persons for appointment to the Supreme Court.
“It is not our position that we are against any of the nominees. Neither are we saying that the President doesn’t have the constitutional mandate to nominate for Supreme Court,” he said.
Minority seeks objection on record
The Minority Leader said the formal objection was intended to ensure that Parliament dealt with the procedural concerns before proceeding further with the vetting.
He said the objection should be recorded regardless of the eventual decision of the committee.
“We ask that this objection be resolved before this committee to proceed further and that it appear on the record of these proceedings, regardless of how it is resolved,” he stated.
The development sets the stage for a potentially contentious debate over the balance between the President’s power to nominate Supreme Court justices, Parliament’s oversight responsibilities and the procedures governing the consideration of such nominations.
For the Minority, however, the central question remains whether there is sufficient urgency to depart from what Mr Afenyo-Markin described as the established process for considering appointments to Ghana’s highest court.
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