The gavel has fallen. And not softly. In the afternoon of Monday September 1 , 2025, the Presidency announced the immediate removal of Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo from office. No waiting for the second petition. No delay for the third. One report. One recommendation. One stroke of constitutional power. It is finished indeed. The law is the law.
What could that sealed envelope have contained, that the President, himself a man seasoned in politics and cautious in optics, moved with such speed? Whatever it was, it must have been damning. Damning enough to silence hesitation, damning enough to make immediate action safer than political caution. For Mahama knows as well as anyone: you do not pull the Chief Justice from her chair without shaking the whole Republic.
And yet he did.
The Article 146 Committee, chaired by Justice Gabriel Pwamang, had reminded us that in camera is not in secret. Evidence was heard, cross-examinations made, experts weighed in. Ten thousand pages of exhibits do not lie idle. Something in those pages, in those testimonies, broke the spine of defence. And so, before the second or third petition could even make their way to conclusion, the first was enough.
The irony is rich. For months, the suspension divided the country. Her supporters, most of them loyal to the New Patriotic Party, cried “unconstitutional,” without pointing to the exact clause. They called her a victim of political vengeance, even as she chose the former NPP Attorney-General, Godfred Dame, as her lawyer. Her critics saw the suspension as overdue, a necessary pause on a record marred by mistrust.
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The danger now is not whether the Chief Justice is gone. That is settled. The danger is whether Ghanaians will accept the verdict as credibility, or dismiss it as cronyism. Was she removed because the facts demanded it, or because politics wanted it? The truth may lie in that report, but for now, the symbolism is what the people will hold on to.
And the symbolism is stark: the most powerful judge in the land has been judged herself.
It is finished indeed. The law is the law.
But this is also a mirror. For it is not only Justice Torkornoo who stood in the dock. It was the judiciary itself. It was our Constitution. It was our Republic. And today’s verdict tells us something sobering: law can still bite. Power can still bow. And no office, not even the Chief Justice’s, is beyond accountability.
Whether this strengthens our democracy or deepens its fractures will depend on what happens next. But for now, history has turned a page.
And in the margins of that page are four words that will echo for years: It is finished indeed.
By Kay Codjoe
