Politics

Election petition: Mahama requests a delay in today’s proceedings for Tsatsu Tsikata to adequately prepare

Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 11:17 AM by Mohammed Awal

- According to him, the request was necessitated by late receipt of affidavits opposing his application for a review

- He wants the ruling dismissing his quest to reopen his case reviewed

- That will allow him to subpoena Jean Mensa into the witness box

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John Mahama, the petitioner in the ongoing election petition trial, has asked that today’s proceedings should start at 11:20 am instead of 9:30 am.

The request was to allow the former president’s lead counsel, Tsatsu Tsikata, to adequately prepare for the day’s proceedings.

Election petition: Mahama requests a delay in today’s proceedings for Tsatsu Tsikata to adequately prepare Photo Credit: John Dramani Mahama
Source: Facebook

YEN.com.gh understands that the move was necessitated by the receipt of affidavits filed by the respondents opposing the former president’s application asking for a review of the court’s ruling to dismiss the reopening of the petitioner’s case.

Meanwhile, the legal team of the former president said the court’s denial of the application to reopen their case “smack of a predetermined agenda to rule against the petitioner in this matter.”

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The court on Tuesday, February 16, 2021, dismissed Mahama’s request through his lawyers to reopen his case.

The former president sought to reopen his case to subpoena the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, into the witness box for cross-examination.

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.”