Election petition: There is predetermined agenda to rule against Mahama in this matter - Dominic Ayine
- According to him, the court had done a great disservice to Ghanaians by refusing the application by John Mahama to reopen his case
- Mahama wants to reopen his case to subpoena the chairperson of the EC into the witness box
- The court, however, dismissed the application
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The legal team of John Mahama says the Supreme Court’s denial of the former president’s application to reopen his case “smack of a predetermined agenda to rule against the petitioner in this matter.”
The court on Tuesday, February 16, 2021, dismissed Mahama’s request through his lawyers to reopen his case.
Source: Facebook
The Court in its ruling said it found the intimation by Tsatsu Tsikata, the lead counsel for the former president that he intended to call the chairperson of the EC as a hostile witness “baffling.”
It continued that a witness who had not yet entered the witness box to testify could not be called a hostile witness under any circumstance.
The court said it exercises its inherent jurisdiction inter-alia to correct errors in procedure and to ensure that no miscarriage of justice was occasioned during a trial.
However, the petitioner had not demonstrated “to us in any way that the decision of the respondent not to testify which was upheld by this court in its ruling of 11 February 2021 has occasioned in any miscarriage of justice.”
Reacting to the ruling in a post-trial interview, a spokesperson for the lawyers of Mahama, Dr. Dominic Ayine, slammed the court for doing Ghanaians a great disservice in denying the reopening of the case.
He further accused the bench of reducing the petition to a single issue petition when the petitioner laid before the court 5 key issues.
Ayine said: “To reduce the petition into a single issue petition is rather unfortunate and smack of a predetermined agenda to rule against the petitioner in this matter.”
Meanwhile, Tsikata told the court during his argument in favour of the petitioner's case that Mensa’s testimony would honour the God she gave glory to before declaring the 2020 presidential election results.
He said the truth of what transpired in the EC’s Strong Room was essential to the case, thus the need for Mensa to testify.
“My Lords, the chairperson [Jean Mensah] should come out to testify and to honour the God she claimed she serves,” he stated.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
