The Concerned Women’s Group of the Central Region has kicked against the petitions to remove the Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, from office.
Consequently, it has called on all women and women groups in the country to stand up and be counted in the face of what it termed, creeping cloud of darkness, ostensibly intended to engulf the progress thus far made in women empowerment.
It also called on the Council of State to see through the lines, and without any hesitation step in to prevent this removal process since it won’t heal and unite the country.
At a press briefing held at Cape Coast, the spokesperson for the Concerned Women’s Group in the Central Region, Miss Vivian Gassor, explained that the group was extremely worried that such moves may be embarked upon, not for the good of it, but purely, patently, and undoubtedly for a parochial end.
“We, as a concerned women’s group in the Central Region, have been worried and disturbed since the announcement of that the President had forwarded three petitions seeking the removal of the Chief Justice to the Council of State,” she emphasised.
Ms Gassor said the group was not opposed due to democratic process as laid down by the 1992 Republican Constitution and would refrain from questioning any citizen’s democratic right to initiate and activate any such process prescribed by the constitution. However, she stressed that the country had over the years grappled with matters of women empowerment, growth and development, particularly in the public sphere, in respect of leadership roles.
“The quite reawakening in our long struggle and quest for a need to have women sit at the decision-making table in the governance of our country” she indicated.
Furthermore, she added that it was the firm belief of the group that, even though they wished, as women, and indeed, as a country, to have gone pass this stage, they nonetheless believe that some good progress was being made, and still hope for an improvement.
“This in our candid belief and estimation is not a mere wishful, fanciful and romantic desire just for the sake of it, but the data is undisputed everywhere that all societies that been consciously inclusive, harnessing the talents and energies of all their citizens have witnessed development and progress at a faster pace,” she stated.
Ms Gassor again said: “It is in light of this, and more importantly, the need to avoid setting the clock of progress backwards, that we feel worried and disturbed, and rightly so, given the potential for the abuse of this process for the removal of the Honourable Chief Justice.”
The resounding support given to the President, John Dramani Mahama, in the 2024 general election, she underscored the need for his administration to pool the efforts of all Ghanaians irrespective of political, ethnic and religious affiliation to help in nation building makes the process to remove the chief Justice from office is needless.
Picture: Miss Vivian Gassor, spokesperson for the Concerned Women’s Group in the Central region, the statement of the group during the event
FROM DAVID O. YARBOI-TETTEH, CAPE COAST
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