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Claim: Multiple social media users have shared a video of Ghana’s Chief Justice, Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, claiming she responded to President John Mahama on the three petitions seeking her removal from office.
Verdict: Misleading! DUBAWA’s checks showed that the video of Chief Justice Torkornoo making the rounds on social media is not recent, as alleged. Metadata extraction tool MW Matadata revealed that state media, the Ghana News Agency, uploaded the video on its YouTube channel on Nov. 22, 2024, at precisely 21:43:12 GMT. The Chief Justice’s only reaction to the news of the three petitions was to request that copies be served on her.
Full Text
Multiple social media users here, here, and here have shared a video of Ghana’s Chief Justice, Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, claiming she responded to President John Mahama on the three petitions seeking her removal from office.
Ghana’s President has referred three petitions seeking the removal of the country’s Chief Justice from office to the Council of State for its advice.
Less than 72 hours after the news broke, some social media users shared a video of Justice Torkornoo claiming she had responded to the petitions.
An X user, @NanaKay6334, who shared the video on Mar. 28, 2025, wrote:
“Chief Justice Torkonoo subtly responded to Mahama over plots to remove her. The law is the law! And nothing else.”
Another X user, @Kelvinyiadom, wrote:
“Chief Justice Torkonoo subtly respond[ed] to Mahama over plots to remove her. The law is the law!”
In the video circulating, the Chief Justice said,
“I was reminding myself of recent conversations where people would say to me, ‘You have held up, and you have done well in this onslaught.’ And I realised that what has held me up is the assurance of competence.”
See Justice Torkornoo’s comment from minutes 0:16 to 0:38 of this video.
The Chief Justice added, “Simply, no decision that I have made in my role as Chief Justice or in my capacity as president of a panel of the Supreme Court has come from anything but the knowledge of [the] law.”
The social media data showed that the video had a combined view count of over 116,543, 1,543 likes, 234 reposts, 78 comments, and 169 bookmarks as of April 2, 2025.
DUBAWA decided to probe the claim as part of its campaign against misinformation and disinformation in Ghana.
Verification
DUBAWA’s checks showed that the video of Chief Justice Torkornoo making the rounds on social media is not recent, as alleged.
Even though the new petitions for her removal were forwarded to the Council of State in March 2025, checks by DUBAWA through a metadata extraction tool, MW Metadata, revealed that state media, the Ghana News Agency, uploaded the viral video on its YouTube channel on Nov. 22, 2024, at precisely 21:43:12 GMT.
The video was from the Women in Leadership in the Public Sector Conference the Chief Justice addressed on Nov. 15, 2024.
Result of DUBAWA’s search on MW Metadata
Therefore, the video could not have been a response to recent attempts to remove her in March 2025.
The Chief Justice’s only reaction to the news of the three petitions was to request that copies be served on her.
In the letter addressed to the President, Justice Torkornoo said:
“Respectfully, as you are no doubt aware, it is the most fundamental precept of the common law and our constitutional dispensation ingrained into the justice delivery process that no consideration that affects the rights of a defendant can be made unless the defendant has been given notice of the contents of a charge, and an opportunity to respond to them.”
The result of DUBAWA’s Google Keyword Search showed no reputable media organisation reported the Chief Justice’s purported video reaction to the three petitions seeking her removal from office.
Conclusion
The video of Ghana’s Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo purportedly reacting to the three petitions seeking her removal from office is old and not recent, as alleged.
