The Supreme Court has declared as unconstitutional an agreement between the then Mahama government and the United States, which saw two Guantanamo Bay detainees brought into the country.
The court therefore ordered that government must within the next three months send the agreement to Parliament for ratification or have two detainees sent back to the United States. According to the majority judgment read by Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo, the then President John Mahama needed the approval of the Parliament before entering into any international agreement of which the Gitmo one is included.
The decision had six justices approving it with Justice Wiliam Atuguba dissenting. The two detainees, Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef, and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, who were in detention for 14 years after being linked with terrorist group Al-Qaeda, were brought to Ghana in 2016, to be reintegrated back into their home countries.
