How Can a Petition Formally Submitted in December 2025, Admittedly Forwarded to the Chief Justice, Still Be Awaiting a Prima Facie Determination in September 2026 When Section 15(3) of Act 959 Gives the Chief Justice 30 Days?

There is delay. Then there is statutory absurdity.

Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu says he submitted his petition seeking the removal of Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng on 11 December 2025. In January, he himself explained the law: the President had seven days to refer it and the Chief Justice had thirty days to determine whether it disclosed a prima facie case. By Kpebu’s own calculation, the petition should have reached the Chief Justice by 17 December.

It is now September 2026.

The calendar has not malfunctioned.

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Section 15(3) of Act 959 says the President “shall within seven days” refer such a petition to the Chief Justice, who “shall, within thirty days” determine whether there is a prima facie case. That is not legislative poetry. Parliament put time limits in the law for a reason. Public power is not supposed to operate on indefinite convenience.

Kpebu now says his petition was indeed forwarded to the Chief Justice but has been “put on ice” because of what he calls a “political settlement.” His explanation is even more extraordinary: “People went to beg the president.” He has offered no public evidence establishing that allegation, and neither the Presidency nor the Chief Justice has publicly confirmed it.

But if Kpebu is telling the truth, Ghana has a much bigger problem than Kissi Agyebeng.

Since when can begging suspend an Act of Parliament?

Who begged whom? What was the settlement? Who authorised it? What provision of Act 959 permits a statutory removal process already before the Chief Justice to be politically refrigerated because unnamed people reportedly approached the President?

And Kpebu himself cannot escape scrutiny.

A lawyer cannot spend months invoking the law, insist that his dossier is too strong to dismiss, then casually say he is “okay” with the manner in which the matter is being held because he is “a practical person.”

Practicality is not a substitute for legality.

The Presidency announced in February that three earlier petitions against Agyebeng had been rejected for failing to establish a prima facie case. Kpebu immediately maintained that his separate petition remained outstanding. The distinction therefore appears genuine.

So the question is no longer whether his petition exists.

The question is what happened to the law after it arrived.

If there was no political intervention, the Presidency and Judicial Service should say so.

If there was, Ghana deserves names, dates, authority and explanation.

Because a country governed by law cannot have statutory clocks that stop whenever somebody enters Jubilee House to beg.