The Supreme Court will deliver its ruling on Friday, August 21, 2026, on an application by Ofoase/Ayirebi MP Kojo Oppong Nkrumah seeking to halt certain High Court proceedings that are continuing through the legal vacation.
Justice Gabriel Pwamang, sitting alone, reserved the decision after both sides finished presenting their arguments on Thursday, August 20.
Through his lawyer Frank Davies, Mr Oppong Nkrumah is asking for an interlocutory injunction to stop the operation of a warrant issued by the Chief Justice until a related constitutional challenge is resolved. That warrant allows High Court judges to keep hearing trials during the legal vacation period, which runs from August 1 to September 30, 2026.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah contends that the warrant goes beyond the proper limits of the Chief Justice’s administrative authority and authorises full trials at a time when courts traditionally focus mainly on urgent or non-contentious matters. His legal team argued that any exercise of discretionary power must conform to Article 296 of the Constitution.
In support of the temporary injunction, Mr Davies submitted that allowing the trials to proceed while the constitutional case remains pending could cause irreversible harm that money could not adequately fix. He pointed to situations in which defence lawyers were unavailable during the vacation yet some judges refused adjournments, citing the warrant.
This, he said, risked undermining the rights of accused persons who might have to face trial without proper legal representation. He maintained that the balance of convenience favoured pausing the trials, because a later finding that the warrant is unconstitutional would otherwise leave the substantive relief sought largely ineffective.
Deputy Attorney-General Dr Justice Srem-Sai opposed the application. He argued that Mr Oppong Nkrumah had not met the legal tests for an interlocutory injunction namely, the existence of a serious question to be tried, the risk of irreparable harm if the injunction is refused, and the balance of convenience.
On the broader constitutional claim, Dr Srem-Sai said the applicant was wrongly mixing the Chief Justice’s administrative act of issuing the warrant with the purely judicial decisions made by individual High Court judges.
The warrant, he stressed, does not dictate how any particular judge should manage a case, when to grant an adjournment, or which matters to hear; those remain judicial choices. If the complaint concerns decisions of individual trial judges, the proper route would be judicial review (including certiorari where appropriate), not an original jurisdiction action in the Supreme Court.
He also rejected the suggestion that any established rule bars the holding of trials during the legal vacation. On the issue of irreparable harm, Dr Srem-Sai noted that Mr Oppong Nkrumah had shown no personal injury he would suffer if the trials continued.
The State’s position was that no exceptional circumstances justified the injunction and that the public interest favoured allowing the proceedings to continue uninterrupted.
Justice Pwamang adjourned the matter to Friday, August 21, 2026, for his ruling.
