“Cases don’t go on leave” – Chief Justice defends vacation judges

Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie has waded into the controversy over whether judges should sit during the legal vacation, insisting the courts cannot completely shut down.

According to the Chief Justice, the debate was blown out of proportion and stems from a misunderstanding of how the judicial vacation works.

He explained that like every worker, judges are entitled to annual leave. Instead of judges proceeding on leave individually throughout the year, the judiciary has adopted a collective vacation period in August and September.

However, he stressed that cases do not go on leave and emergency matters must still be heard.

“Cases do not go on leave. They have to be heard and sometimes important, impromptu cases – somebody has died, the body has to be released and there is an injunction and all that – emergency cases have to be handled,” Justice Baffoe-Bonnie said.

To address this, he said some judges are kept behind as vacation judges with warrants to handle emergencies. Once the majority return from vacation, those vacation judges then proceed on their own leave.

Citing this year’s arrangement as an example, he said of the 10 commercial courts, two judges – Commercial Court 2 and Commercial Court 8 – were given warrants.

The Commercial Court 2 judge was mandated to take additional responsibility for Courts 1, 3, 4 and 5, while the Commercial Court 8 judge took charge of Courts 6, 7, 9 and 10 for emergency purposes.

He clarified that a vacation judge continues to handle his own substantive cases because he is not on leave, but for cases from other courts, he only has a warrant to handle emergency applications.

“When the other people come back from leave, he also goes on leave and his cases will be handled by somebody who is not on leave,” he added.

The Chief Justice was speaking amid criticism from a section of lawyers over judges sitting during the legal vacation.