The vetting of Supreme Court nominee Justice Hafisata Amaleboba turned tense on Tuesday as Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin clashed with Appointments Committee Chairman Bernard Ahiafor over the scope of presidential authority in sanctioning ministers.
The friction arose when Afenyo-Markin probed the nominee on whether President John Mahama’s imposition of financial penalties on ministers for failing to declare assets constituted an overreach of executive power — potentially infringing on the constitutional jurisdiction of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
Justice Amaleboba, responding calmly, said she saw no breach of constitutional boundaries. According to her, the President’s administrative actions did not amount to a usurpation of CHRAJ’s powers.
But the Minority Leader remained unconvinced, rephrasing and reiterating his question in an attempt to press the nominee further. His insistence, however, was interrupted by Committee Chairman Ahiafor, who ruled that the question had already been adequately addressed and asked Afenyo-Markin to move on.
That ruling sparked a fiery backlash from the Minority Leader, who accused Ahiafor of attempting to stifle parliamentary scrutiny. In a visibly charged tone, Afenyo-Markin warned that such precedents could erode the credibility of the vetting process and come back to haunt Parliament in the future.
“If you are strategically planning that a Supreme Court nominee should not go through proper vetting, so be it. But this question is not out of order,” Afenyo-Markin retorted.
Chairman Ahiafor, however, stood firm. “The public is not only watching me, it is watching all of us. And the jury will be out,” he said, reaffirming his decision to bar further responses from the nominee on the matter.
The standoff highlighted simmering tensions within the Appointments Committee and underscored ongoing partisan divisions over the role of the executive in enforcing public accountability — particularly in relation to asset declaration by government officials.
As the vetting continued, observers noted that the impasse underscored the importance of safeguarding the independence of oversight institutions and ensuring transparency in judicial appointments.
