The Supreme Court has dismissed a review application by the Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayeribi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, seeking to overturn an earlier decision refusing an injunction pending the final determination of a case challenging the constitutionality of warrants issued to High Court judges to sit during the legal vacation and hear some criminal cases.

A three-member panel of the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi, unanimously dismissed the application on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, holding that it had failed to meet the threshold for the Court’s limited review jurisdiction.

The Court said the application did not establish the exceptional circumstances required to warrant a review of the decision of the single Judge, Justice Gabriel Scott Pwamang.

Justice Kulendi, delivering the decision, said the Court had carefully considered the processes on record, including the affidavits and legal arguments filed by both sides, as well as the oral submissions of counsel.

“Our unanimous decision is that the application failed at the threshold on all grounds and as such ought to be dismissed as unmeritorious,” the Court held.

The full reasons for the decision are expected to be available at the Registry on September 7, 2026.

Challenge to warrants

The application arose from Oppong Nkrumah’s substantive suit challenging the constitutionality and legality of warrants issued to High Court judges to enable them to hear criminal trials during the legal vacation.

The warrants relate to criminal proceedings involving the cases of former National Signals Bureau boss Kwabena Adu Boahen and former National Food Buffer Stock Company CEO
Abdul Hanan Wahab.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah had sought an interlocutory injunction to restrain the implementation of the warrants pending the determination of his substantive constitutional challenge.

Justice Pwamang, sitting as a single Justice of the Supreme Court, dismissed the application for the injunction, prompting the legislator to invoke the Court’s review jurisdiction.

Applicant’s case
Represented by Frank Davies, Oppong Nkrumah argued that there were patent errors on the face of the single Justice’s ruling which justified the intervention of the full Court.

One of the central arguments concerned the distinction between civil and criminal proceedings during the legal vacation.

Frank Davies argued that the single Justice’s position that the legal-vacation provisions applied to civil proceedings but not criminal trials raised a fundamental question: if criminal trials could proceed during the vacation without a warrant, there was no need for the impugned warrants.

He maintained that this amounted to an error apparent on the face of the ruling.

The applicant also argued that the single Justice had gone beyond the proper scope of an interlocutory application by making findings touching on the merits of the substantive constitutional case.

Counsel further challenged the decision’s approach to the test for granting an interlocutory injunction in a public-interest case, arguing that the applicable threshold was whether there was a serious question of law to be tried rather than whether the applicant had demonstrated high prospects of success.

Attorney-General opposes review

The Deputy Attorney-General, Dr Justice Srem-Sai, urged the Court to dismiss the application, arguing that the applicant had failed to demonstrate any special or exceptional circumstance warranting the exercise of the Supreme Court’s review jurisdiction.

He argued that the review jurisdiction was not an avenue for re-arguing matters already considered by the single Justice and could not be used as an appeal against the decision.

According to him, the eight grounds advanced by the applicant did not disclose any circumstance capable of meeting that threshold.

The Supreme Court, having considered the arguments from both sides, dismissed the review application.

Source: citinewsroom