The Wenchi High Court hearing the case on the Techiman South Constituency election petition, has taken a more reasonable approach towards the case unlike the widely condemned one adopted by the seven Supreme Court Justices during the 2020 election petition hearing on the Presidential results by the Chairperson of Election Commission (EC), Jean Mensa.
Unlike the Supreme Court, the Wenchi High Court ruled for inspection of documents and interrogatories.
The judges of the apex court, made nonsense of the age old saying that “even twins don’t think alike”, by surprisingly being unanimous in every decisions including refusing Jean Mensa’s entering the witness box ending up creating a level of impunity and lack of accountability among public officials vested with state powers to make decision on behalf of Ghanaians.
Interestingly, even when they were nine in number during reviews of the earlier decisions, the Justices, including Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, Justice Yaw Appau, Justice Samuel Marful-Sau, Justice Nene Amegatcher, Justice Professor Nii Ashie Kotey, Justice Mariama Owusu and Justice Gertrude Tokornoo, Justice Amadu Tanko, Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, and sometimes Justice Avril Lovelace-Johnson, were still unanimous in their legal reasoning.
But in sharp contrast to the Supreme Court position where demands for documents from the EC were unanimously rejected, the Wenchi High Court ordered that the EC release the original pink sheets to Mr Christopher Beyere Baasongti, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate in the 2020 election for inspection.
Interestingly, following a court order to release original copies of the Pink Sheet to Mr Beyere Baasongti, for inspection, the NDC has disclosed that it has discovered what it believes is doctoring of election results summary sheets by the EC in the 2020 polls.
The EC, had failed to heed the directive of the Court and instead provided photocopies to the NDC candidate, and to this the court awarded a cost of GH¢2,000 in favour of the petitioner, Mr Beyere Baasongti against the EC’s failure to properly produce the original documents as directed.
The EC was also instructed to ensure that the original copies are made available by 2 PM on April 19. This was after the EC, arrived at the court on Monday, April 19, an hour late to file the original documents.
The NDC in arriving at the court, came along with a power generator and a photocopier to assess the documents.
This is because there was nearly a power outage, while the EC was filing its documents, but the NDC was able to assess the documents.
Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the NDC told the media: “This is just a simple process of the EC producing originals of some documents for our inspection, so we have inspected them and done some photocopies.
The contents will be discussed when they are in the witness box.” Asiedu Nketia was quoted in a Citi news report monitored by Ghanaweb: “They have provided us with documents, but we believe there are issues around those documents…we knew there could be a power outage so we came prepared with our photocopier and our generator so the lights going off couldn’t have stopped the process”.
On the NDC’s claim of discovering what it believes is doctoring of election results summary sheets by the EC in the 2020 polls, Abraham Amaliba, the Director of Legal at the NDC Headquarters, some alterations are suspected to have been made to these documents which they are planning to probe when the case begins.
“The name on that sheet was a different constituency and then canceled it and rather, wrote Techiman South on it. So that one, we think that we will have to deal with it during cross-examination.
He further accused the defendants of scheming to halt the process though unjustified delays, including a planned power outage which the NDC had already prepared for.
“The photocopying was done on our pickup, with our photocopier colour together with our generator. So I suspect that the reason why they were delayed and not going into the register’s office was they were communicating with the electricity people so that they could put off the lights at a certain point,” he told JoyNews.
The legal practitioner narrated that “the courts gave us up to 4:30 pm and so at 4, they would have said that you are not able to put a coffee line out our faults, but we had also outsmarted them.”
Source: www.theheraldghana.com
