The Committee probing the 22 Circuit and Magistrate Court judges implicated in the recent alleged judicial scandal yesterday adjourned sitting to November 2 and 3.
This follows a petition filed by ace investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI, prevailing upon the committee to grant them permission to travel out of the country, which was later upheld.
Besides, some members of the committee will also be travelling outside the court’s jurisdiction for some time.
The judges and their lawyers who were anxious to cross-examine Anas and his team, appeared before the committee yesterday fully prepared for proceedings to continue.
They waited patiently, as Anas arrived at about 1 p.m. in the company of his two other colleagues all in a hooded apparel, amidst a heavy police presence.
They were swiftly ushered from their Toyota Tundra vehicle into the Judicial Service building, the venue for the committee’s sitting.
After an hour’s sitting, the proceeding was adjourned.
The committee, until Wednesday’s proceeding, suspended its sitting awaiting the outcome of an injunction challenging its constitutionality at the High Court.
However, an Appeal Court Judge, Justice Gertrude Torkonoo, sitting with additional High Court responsibility, on Tuesday, struck out the injunction application on the grounds that the Judicial Council had jurisdiction to investigate the judges.
A highly placed source told The Ghanaian Times that the lawyers cross-examined Anas and his team in their beaded face masks.
Some of the lawyers, who pleaded anonymity, said they had no option arguing that the law required Anas and his team to remove their masks during the cross-examination.
The Chief Justice, Mrs. Georgina Theodora Wood, suspended the 22 circuit court judges and magistrates who were caught on video allegedly receiving bribes from litigants.
She, then, set up the committee chaired by Sophia Adinyira, a Supreme Court Judge, to investigate the matter.
The implicated judges, who denied any misconduct on their part, claimed the undercover investigation was deliberately orchestrated to incite the public against them.
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