[ 2021-02-17 ]

It "Smacks Of A Predetermined Agenda Against The Petitioner" - Dominic Ayine
Dominic Ayine, Member of Parliament(MP) for
Bolgatanga East Constituency in the Upper East
Region says the fact that the Supreme Court has
reduced 'five key issues to be determined' to just
one "smacks of a predetermined agenda to rule
against the petitioner".

The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, in a unanimous
decision dismissed former President John Mahama's
motion to reopen his case.

Mr Mahama sought to reopen his case to enable his
lawyers subpoena Madam Jean Mensa to appear before
the court and testify as a “hostile witness”.

But the panel, in its ruling delivered by Chief
Justice Anin Yeboah said, "we accordingly refuse
the application and proceed without any hesitation
to dismiss it".

This was after an earlier ruling on February 11.

Reacting to this at a press briefing, Dr Dominc
Ayine said, "In our view the court was wrong; in
our view the reasons of the court were based upon
wrong legal premises but . . . we are bound by
what it has said".

Single issue to be determined

Dr Ayine also expressed dissatisfaction at the
fact that the Supreme Court claim "there is only
one issue to be determined".

" . . these are germane issues under the
constitution of Ghana and to reduce the petition
into a single issue petition is rather unfortunate
and smacks of a predetermined agenda to rule
against the petitioner in this matter," he said.

According to him, "The Supreme Court asked itself
a question which we deem was a wrong question and
answered that question; it said why does the
Chairperson of the Electoral Commission need to
account to the people of Ghana when she is not a
party to the suit . . . now you would recall that
counsel (Tsatsu Tsikata) made it very clear that
one of the reasons why we are in court is because
of the unconstitutional conduct of Mrs. Jean
Adukwei Mensa as the returning officer under the
constitution and it is not true that there is only
one issue that needs to be determined in this
matter".

"I am surprised that the Supreme Court itself,
having set down five key issues to be determined
is now reducing the issues to one; which is
whether and the extent to which the evidence that
we have led shows that no one got more than 50
percent of the votes in accordance with article 63
of the constitution, but we have made it
abundantly clear in the petition that there were a
number of infractions; we’re contesting even the
constitutionality of the declaration that was
made. We are saying that she violated article 23
of the constitution . . . these are germane issues
under the constitution of Ghana and to reduce the
petition into a single issue petition is rather
unfortunate and smacks of a predetermined agenda
to rule against the petitioner in this matter".

He further insisted that, "the court by this
decision has done the people of this country a
great disservice in the sense that Ghanaians are
interested in knowing the truth".

Source - Peacefm online

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