Private legal practitioner, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare has called on the Apex Court of Ghana to take a cue from the president’s intervention in the dismissed final year Senior High School students issue and resume sitting to decide on his case challenging the directive by President Akufo-Addo to the Auditor General, Daniel DomeLevo to proceed on an accumulated leave of 167 days.
Prof. Asare believes the Supreme Court is the only institution that could intervene in the matter at this point to determine whether the directive has any legal basis. He contends that the continuous delay of the case as a result of the legal vacation by the Supreme Court is precarious to the rule of law of the country.
His call comes after the president directed the Minister for Education, Mathew Opoku Prempeh to engage the Ghana Education Service (GES) to reconsider its decision to stop 14 dismissed final year Senior High School students from continuing to write the ongoing West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE)
While backing president Akufo-Addo’s intercession in the action taken by GES, he wants the Supreme Court to call off its legal vacation and commence hearing on the case so as to bring a resolution to the matter.
“The Supreme Court must similarly take some time off its voluntary vacation to decide whether the President is allowed to direct the Auditor-General to take an involuntary vacation. Forty (2 scores) days without an Auditor-General is just not acceptable. It makes it worse that the Court with the jurisdiction to pronounce on the matter is on vacation!” he stated in a social media post.
Professor Kwaku Asare is in court challenging the constitutionality of the president’s directive to the auditor general to proceed on leave. He argued in his suit that the directive to Mr. Domelevo to take his accumulative leave and the subsequent appointment of an acting auditor general contravenes Article 187 of the 1992 constitution.
Professor Asare had also filed an injunction application seeking to stop Mr. Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu from acting as an Auditor General but the application was struck out by the supreme court after he withdrew the case.
However, the substantive case which is challenging the legality of the president’s directive has not been heard due to the legal vacation of the judiciary.
But Prof. Asare who is not enthused with the decision to put the case on hold till the end of the legal vacation has on several occasions appealed to the apex court to immediately call off its vacation and sit on the case to avert an imminent constitutional crisis.
