Ghana’s first Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has published a detailed legal opinion arguing that the April 15 High Court ruling stripping the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) of prosecutorial powers is void because the court never had jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place.
In a paper dated April 22, 2026, Amidu identifies three separate grounds on which he argues the ruling by Mr. Justice John Eugene Nyante Nyadu of High Court, Accra (General Jurisdiction 10) was made without lawful authority and should be quashed by the Supreme Court.
His first and foundational argument is that the originating application filed by Peter Archibold Hyde was incompetent. Amidu notes that Hyde’s supporting affidavit stated only that he was “a citizen of Ghana and competent to depose”, without disclosing that he was being prosecuted by the OSP or that his rights were being contravened. Under Order 55 of the High Court Civil Procedure Rules, a quo warranto application requires the applicant to demonstrate a personal cause of action. Without that, Amidu argues, the High Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the matter at all, and any ruling flowing from that incompetent originating process is void ab initio.
This view has independent support from legal scholars who argued that while the High Court has authority to issue supervisory orders including quo warranto, it cannot assume jurisdiction over matters that fundamentally require constitutional interpretation, and that the appropriate step would have been to refer the matter to the Supreme Court.
Amidu’s second ground is that the High Court unlawfully ventured into constitutional interpretation by examining Article 88 of the Constitution against Section 4(2) of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959). Under Articles 2 and 130 of the Constitution, that interpretive power belongs exclusively to the Supreme Court. The learned judge even assessed whether the OSP Act could qualify as an amendment of Article 88 under the entrenchment provisions of the Constitution — territory, Amidu says, that no High Court is empowered to enter.
His third ground concerns the specific orders made. The High Court directed the Attorney General to take over all OSP prosecutions and declared any conviction already secured by the OSP void. Amidu argues neither order falls within the permissible remedies under Order 55 of the Civil Procedure Rules on a quo warranto application, making those orders jurisdictional excesses.
Amidu also criticised the OSP’s own handling of the case. He argued the Special Prosecutor should have raised a preliminary objection to the incompetent application at the outset, which would have prevented the court from rushing the proceedings. He described the decision to file an affidavit in opposition instead as a fundamental error. He has separately criticised the Attorney General’s statement of case in the pending Supreme Court action as effectively endorsing the plaintiff’s position rather than offering a neutral defence of the law.
Amidu urged the Special Prosecutor to urgently seek a certiorari from the Supreme Court to quash the High Court ruling, and to seek a stay of execution of the ruling pending that application. He also called on civil society organisations committed to anti-corruption to apply to join the Supreme Court case as interested parties to place before the court the perspective the Attorney General has, in his view, suppressed.
The OSP has already stated publicly that the High Court lacked authority to strike down parts of an Act of Parliament and that it is taking steps to overturn the ruling. The Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of Act 959, filed by Noah Adamtey in December 2025, remains the definitive forum for resolution.
