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The Government represented by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice is sweating over  the writ filed at the Supreme Court concerning the two GITMO detainees being hosted in Ghana as the AG has failed to file her response within the stipulated fourteen (14) days.

What is likely to break the camel’s back is that, the apex Court has scheduled tomorrow 2nd March, 2016 to hear the case with or without the appearance of the defendants who are the Attorney General and the Ministry of Interior.

The writ, with suit number J1/7/2016, was filed by Margaret Bamful, an 86 year old retired Conference Officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Henry Nana Boakye, a student of the Ghana School of Law, through their lawyer Nana Agyei Baffuor Awuah, an English and Ghanian trained Barrister, of DE MEDEIROS and Associates, an Accra based law firm.

According to the applicants, the President acted unconstitutionally in his failure to obtain the requisite ratification by an Act of Parliament or a resolution of Parliament when he agreed with the government of the US to transfer the two former detainees to Ghana.

They are  seeking among other reliefs a “declaration that on a true and proper interpretation of Article 75 of the1992 Constitution of Ghana, the President of the Republic of Ghana acted unconstitutionally by agreeing to the transfer of Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby (both profiled terrorists and former detainees of Guantanamo Bay) to the Republic of Ghana without the ratification by an Act of Parliament or a resolution of Parliament supported by the votes of more than one-half of all the members of Parliament”.

They further seek a “declaration that on a true and proper interpretation of Article 58(2) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the President of the Republic of Ghana who is under an obligation to execute and maintain laws of Ghana breached the Anti-terrorism Act of 2008 (Act 762) and the Immigration Act of 2000 (Act 573), both being laws passed under the 1992 Constitution of Ghana”.

An official search conducted at the Registry of the Supreme Court, on the 9th February 2016, revealed that the Attorney General and the Ministry of Interior were duly served with the Plaintiffs' Statement of Case on the 22nd of January 2016 but the Defendants as of the said date had failed to file a response in breach of the Supreme Court Rules, 1996 (CI16) which gives a defendant who has been served with a writ and statement of case 14days to file a response.

The Supreme Court has however served on the parties a hearing notice informing same that with or without an appearance from the Defendants, the case shall be called for hearing on tomorrow Tuesday, 1st March 2016.

The motive behind the inability of the Attorney General to put in a response remains unknown.