The Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga has raised issues with the President's powers to nominate Supreme Court judges above the number 10 including the Chief Justice.
To him, the 1992 Constitution talks about the Chief Justice and nine other justices and thinks the President needs an instrument to make a nomination.
He raised the issue Tuesday morning, when a nominee, Justice Sophia Rosetta Oduokuwa Bernasko Essah appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament for vetting.
According to Mr Ayariga, the fact that all presidents in the past have been making that mistake, does not mean that Parliament should go ahead and continue to entertain that error.
He argued that the 1992 Constitution stipulates the Supreme Court should consist of the Chief Justice and "not less than nine" other Justices.
He contended that the President's move to appoint additional Justices violated Article 128 (1) of the Constitution.
He said: "There is nowhere in this constitution that the President is given the power to increase the number (of judges) beyond the nine plus one, nowhere, and I challenge anybody in this room to show me any provision in this constitution that states that even though Article 128 (1) says nine plus Chief Justice as the minimum and you don't have an upper ceiling but the person to decide that upper ceiling is the President."
"Who says the person to decide that upper ceiling is the President, who? Show me which provision... And I am not talking about this President, previous Presidents have done that before. So it is not about this President, previous Presidents have done that before... No such power is given to the President".
He subsequently followed his initial statement with a motion asking that the committee should vote on whether or not to proceed with the vetting.
The issue raised by Mr Ayariga generated a debate among the members of the committee for about 40 minutes.
The Majority Chief Whip was of the opinion that, the issue should be referred to the plenary for a determination while the committee members concentrated and proceeded with the vetting.
While there were some members who supported Ayariga's statement and therefore called on the chairperson to allow a vote on the motion, others objected and insisted the committee should concentrate and proceed with the vetting so that the plenary could consider the issue.
To those who opposed Ayariga, their argument was that, the Speaker specifically referred the nominees to the committee and they went ahead to invite the nominees and so the vetting should go ahead.
They insisted that, any preliminary objection should have been raised ahead of time before they went ahead to invite the nominees.
The prolonged debate forced the chairperson, Patricia Appiagyei to adjourn sitting for a short while.
But before then, the Minority Leader for instance, Cassiel Ato Forson also raised an issue with the communication from the presidency on the nominees.
To him, the president made reference to making the nominations to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Kotey and another vacancy to be created in November 2024 upon the retirement of Justice Mariama.
He said the president made reference to making the nominations to that the Supreme Court can get its full complement and that to him, is where the problem is since the issue of the full complement of the Supreme Court is not well defined as the Constitution only talks about a minimum of nine plus the Chief Justice and does not talk about any upper limit.
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