The contempt case filed by one of the accused judges in the judicial corruption scandal against EIB Network’s Bola Ray, Journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Accra International Conference Center and the Media Foundation for West Africa, has been recalled by the judge who dismissed it after she admitted she erred.
According to Justice Gertrude Torkonu, her decision to dismiss the case on 28th September, was based on wrong information given by the Registrar of the court.
“I vacated my order of 28 September 2015, dismissing the application for account of registrar’s tampering with date. I set it aside totally and restore the application to the docket.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”kFVmIwOQUhdBNRKG0vsN18zk8BW4eV11″]Explaining her actions to the court, Justice Torkonu said the earlier ruling has been quashed and a new date of December 21st, 2015, has been set to commence hearing of Justice Dery’s contempt suit.
“Even granted that the Registrar lying and never informed counsel for applicant that she had changed the date for hearing of the application in issue, there is a simple way in which maters like this case are resolved in court as a matter of practice, counsel who finds himself holding an application record with a date different from the date it was heard only need to file a search to determine what went wrong and ask the court to vacate the order made on account of his not having had proper notice of the hearing.”
Justice Dery, who is one of the suspended High Court judges allegedly caught on tape by investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, taking bribes, had filed a suit seeking to stop the screening of the video at the Accra International Conference Center but was unsuccessful.
After the video showing and news publications of portions of the video, Justice Dery filed a contempt suit against those who showed the video and others who published stories from it.
His suit sought to convict and punish the Chief Executive Officer of Starr FM, Nathaniel Kwabena Anokye Adisi [Bola Ray], CEO of private investigative firm, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the Acting Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Samuel Frempong Addo, Deputy Editor of the New Crusading Guide, Ernest Addo, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah and the manager of the Accra International Conference Center.
But the Judge, Justice Torkonu, threw out the contempt case.
Justice Dery then argued that the judge acted wrongly since he was not given the opportunity to be heard. He appealed against the ruling and also demanded that the judge recuse herself from the case.
Per Justice Torkonu’s admission of error, the case would have to be restarted. –
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana