The petitioner in the election petition case, John Dramani Mahama, has filed a motion at the Supreme Court for leave to reopen his case.
His lawyers had closed his case in anticipation of the respondents putting their witnesses forth for cross-examination.
But that never happened as the respondents also closed their case and prayed the court not to adduce evidence.
The petitioner objected to this application but the court on Thursday, February 11, 2021, ruled that it cannot compel the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission to take the witness box.
The ruling also applied to the second respondent, Nana Akufo-Addo who was expected to present Peter Mac Manu as his witness.
Documents sighted by Citi News indicates that the petitioner will subpoena the EC Chairperson to testify if the application is granted.
The application will be heard on Monday, February 15, 2021.
Meanwhile, one of the lawyers for the petitioners, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong has said that her side will put in a subpoena application to get the EC Chair, Jean Mensa to testify in the witness box.
“We disagree [with the ruling]. It is as simple as that. We have nothing to do about the decision of the court but accept it, and so we are going to file for an application for review. Counsel for the petitioner has announced that he will file a review of today’s decision of the court. You heard the Lordships, they said no one can stop us from filing an application”, she noted during a post-trial press conference.
Justifying why the EC Chair must mount the witness box, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong reiterated the numerous occasions where the Commission has refused to provide information thereby questioning the transparency and accountability of the electoral management body.
“The Chairperson in the past has said she will be available for cross-examination. We have an EC who when a request for interrogatories was served on her in the past, she refused to respond. The EC has to be accountable to us and tell us how she made those errors. There are questions we have to put to her [Jean Mensa] that no one can answer. She alone can answer”, Madam Appiah-Oppong added.
