Deputy AG says Oppong Nkrumah’s legal vacation case rests on ‘deliberate falsehood’
Deputy Attorney General Justice Srem-Sai says evidence presented by the Ofoase-Ayirebi MP contradicts the claim that only two judges were authorised to hear criminal cases during Ghana’s legal vacation.
Deputy Attorney General Dr Justice Srem-Sai has accused Ofoase-Ayirebi MP Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and his lawyers of relying on what he calls a “deliberate falsehood” in their challenge to the Chief Justice’s directive allowing selected criminal cases to be heard during Ghana’s legal vacation.
The accusation came after the Supreme Court dismissed Mr Oppong Nkrumah’s application for an interlocutory injunction seeking to stop criminal trials from being conducted during the vacation.
Justice Gabriel Pwamang, sitting as a single judge of the Supreme Court on Friday, August 21 2026, dismissed the application after finding that the applicant had failed to establish a serious constitutional question warranting an injunction.
Dr Srem-Sai said the central claim behind the injunction was that Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie had assigned selected cases to only two judges to hear during the legal vacation.
That allegation, he argued, was contradicted by evidence submitted by Mr Oppong Nkrumah’s own legal team.
“On court, however, their own evidence shows that their allegation was a deliberate falsehood,” Dr Srem-Sai wrote in a Facebook post after the ruling.
He pointed to Exhibit D, which he said showed that the Chief Justice’s warrant was general and was not restricted to any particular case.
He also cited Exhibit E, which he said showed that 29 judges, rather than two, were sitting during the legal vacation.
The Deputy Attorney General said the legal challenge had nevertheless succeeded in preventing the courts from operating for a week.
“The point, however, is that they have succeeded in preventing the courts from working for one week. Never underestimate the power of deliberate falsehood,” he said.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah had brought the substantive case before the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of administrative warrants issued by the Chief Justice.
Those warrants directed selected High Court judges to hear criminal cases during the legal vacation.
The injunction application was therefore an attempt to suspend the effect of those arrangements while the wider constitutional challenge was being considered.
The Supreme Court's dismissal of the injunction means the application to halt the affected criminal trials has failed. However, based on the information available, the ruling does not itself amount to a final determination of the broader constitutional challenge to the Chief Justice’s directives.
The dispute has consequently shifted from whether the trials should immediately be stopped to the wider question of the constitutional basis for the Chief Justice’s administrative warrants.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah’s position on the Deputy Attorney General’s accusation is not included in the material provided for this report.
The substantive case challenging the Chief Justice’s directives remains the key development to watch.
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