By: Ashiadey Dotse
The Majority Leader in Parliament, Mahama Ayariga, on Monday, November 10, 2025, challenged the Minority Leader, Afenyo-Markin, during the vetting of Chief Justice nominee, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie.
The misunderstanding started after the Minority Leader, in his opening remarks, described the Chief Justice nominee as a “disputed nominee”.
Mahama Ayariga immediately raised an objection. He said Parliament’s Standing Orders do not allow MPs to refer to a Chief Justice nominee with such a description, especially when the House had already ruled on a previous motion about the nominee.
According to him, Standing Order 123 prevents MPs from questioning issues that Parliament has already discussed and ruled on. He insisted that calling the nominee “disputed” was unlawful and must not be allowed, calling on the chairman to instruct the ranking member to retract and apologize for his comment.
“I am objecting to the use of the term ‘disputed nominee’ because there is no dispute before this House,” Ayariga argued strongly.
But Afenyo-Markin disagreed completely. He said the Majority Leader was only trying to silence the Minority and block them from expressing their political views. He insisted that his comments were not a debate but a normal opening statement; therefore, the rule Ayariga quoted did not apply.
The Minority Leader added that the process of nominating the new Chief Justice was already political in the eyes of Ghanaians, and the Minority had every right to express their reservations.
“We are political actors. We also have a right to speak. We cannot be prevented from expressing our view,” Afenyo-Markin fired back.
The drama forced the Chairman of the committee, Bernard Ahiafor, to call for calm so the vetting could continue.
Afenyo-Markin argued that the minority caucus are of the view that Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Tokornoo’s removal, cloaked in some opaque circumstances, is unacceptable to the jurisprudence of the country.
The incident created tense moments inside the vetting room but also showed how deeply divided both sides are over the appointment of Justice Baffoe-Bonnie as Ghana’s next Chief Justice.
