Lawyers for one of the accused High Court judges in the judicial corruption scandal, Justice Paul Dery, are now heading to the Supreme Court to attempt to nullify the entire petition filed by investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas.
Anas and his Tigereyepi team have petitioned the Chief Justice and the Judicial Council to investigate, dismiss and punish the over 30 judges and over 80 court officials captured in the three-hour video in a two-year investigation allegedly taking bribes.
Although the judicial council and the chief justice have commenced investigations into the allegations, some of the judges have resorted to the court, challenging the investigative processes and the legality of journalist’s video.
[contextly_sidebar id=”QQJ7NUsWf5Nj8nIXhfXISMfsd9xmI6eO”]Justice Dery, who has already filed three different suits against Anas, the Attorney General and the Conference Centre particularly regarding the public showing of the video, is now heading to the Supreme Court; this time to get the court to declare as null and void Anas’ petition for him to be dismissed.
Justice Dery’s lawyer, Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo had early on Tuesday withdrawn an application for interlocutory injunction against Anas and his private investigation company, Tigereyepi from airing the video.
He however filed another application for interlocutory injunction against managers of the Accra International Conference Centre, seeking to restrain them from allowing the centre to be used to screen the video.
The lawyer maintained that once the authorities had been served with these processes, they were stopped from allowing Tigereyepi to screen the video there. On the other hand, Anas and his lawyers insisted that they had a contract with the Accra International Conference Centre and consequently had a right to use the facility.
The screening thus came off as planned on Tuesday with thousands of Ghanaians watching.
Supreme Court reliefs
Following the turn of events, lawyers for Mr. Dery have served notice they will be heading to the Supreme Court over the matter.
Justice Dery is expected to pray the highest court of the land to declare that Anas’ petition to the president for his removal as a High Court judge is null and void.
He will be relying on Article 146 (8) of the Constitution which states: “All proceedings under this article shall be held in camera, and the Justice or Chairman against whom the petition is made is entitled to be heard in his defence by himself or by a lawyer or other expert of his choice.”
His lawyers are expected to argue that Anas, after petitioning the president to remove him from the bench because of the acts complained about on the video, violated the constitutional provisions by proceeding to make the evidence public.
–
By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana