Thursday 29th August 2013, Ghana woke up with a cloud of uncertainty over the entire country.
The media tagged it “Judgement Day!”
In the days, weeks and months leading up to the Judgement Day, the international community had watched with keen interest and anxiety, following fears that aggrieved supporters of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) could plunge Ghana, a country respected globally for her peace and stability, into chaos.
Nine eminent Supreme Court Judges, led by Justice William Atuguba, were to deliver a verdict on a historical election petition case brought by three top NPP leaders.
The petitioners; flagbearer of the NPP at the time, Nana Akuffo Addo, his running mate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, and the party Chairman at the time, Jake Obetsebi Lampetey, had dragged the elected President, John Dramani Mahama, and the Electoral Commission to the court, alleging gross electoral irregularities.
Dr. Bawumia, in the witness box on April 28, 2013, presented to the court in hard copy, a geographic representation of the spread of the “constitutional, statutory violations and irregularities” that the petitioners claimed affected the conduct and outcome of the December 7, 2012 General Elections.
Ghanaians in the country and abroad had their eyeballs firmly glued to the screens of their television sets for months, soaking in the sometimes confusing legal jargons, but still hoped to make sense of the outcome of a “legal battle” decided, in the end, in favour of President John Dramani Mahama.
“Pink sheet” was perhaps the commonest noun from the entire case whereas Dr Bawumia’s “You and I were not there” also became a household chorus.
The President and the two other respondents – the Electoral Commission and the NDC- had denied the petitioners allegations vehemently. The NDC legal team was led by one of the sharpest brains in the Ghana’s legal field, Tatsu Tsikata. In open court, he described portions of the the petitioners’ case as “factually empty” and “legally pathetic”.
“…Respectfully My Lords, we believe that this petition has been shown to be factually empty in terms of not having any supportable evidence being produced; it’s been shown to be legally pathetic because the claims that are being made have no legal standing whatsoever especially this claim about serial numbers,” he said.
NDC joins itself to petition
Long before the Supreme Court heard the substantive case, the nine justices, by a unanimous decision (6 – 3) allowed the National Democratic Congress to join the election petition. Lead counsel Tsatsu Tsikata had insisted that the governing party offered President John Dramani Mahama the platform to contest for the presidency and was thus an interested party whose interest would be injured if it was not allowed to join the petition as a respondent. The judges upheld his argument and allowed the NDC to join the case as the third respondent, despite strong opposition from lawyers for the petitioners.
One year on – Sir John
As serious as the case was, it did not go without headline-grabbing moments. For instance, the judges dragged before them the General Secretary of the NPP at the time, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, on contempt charges after he had called Justice Atuguba “a hypocrite, a joker who pampers Tsikata, and scolds Addison.”
These strong words landed him in trouble with the law. He was fined GH¢5,000 or serve six months imprisonment in default by the Supreme Court.
One year on, Sir John tells citifmonline.com that the court was not fair to him. “I quite remember Tony Lithur throwing bare spit on the floor of the Court which in my candid opinion amounted to contempt insascio prima and yet the Lordships did not see anything wrong with that. And so it was sad that statements made outside the court for which the NDC wanted me to be punished were indeed punished,” he said.
Side attraction
The editor of the Searchlight Newspaper, Ken Agyei Kuranchie, was sentenced to 10 days imprisonment, having been found guilty of criminal contempt of the Supreme Court by the justices.
In sentencing Mr Kuranchie, Justice Atuguba said in part: “We have no doubt that the said statements are made with intent by him to defy the authority of this court and the due administration of justice; accordingly we find him guilty of criminal contempt of this court and sentence him to 10 days imprisonment.”
The Court also threw a relatively unknown NDC foot soldier, Stephen Atubiga, into jail for three days after he had gone on public radio to incite NDC supporters by saying that they should disregard the judgement of the Court if it went against the party.
One year on, in an interview with citifmonline.com, Mr. Atubiga said he still struggles to sleep at night, after spending a few days in prison for contempt of the highest court in the land.
“When I look back, honestly speaking, the apology that I rendered to the justices was really from the bottom of my heart. Having said that, I mean the three days was like three years,” he says. ]
He adds, “Since that day I have always been in pain; I mean this is on the dark side. Sometimes, I have to take a thousand milligrams of teranol PM before I am able to sleep.”
The election petition process was historic. The judges made several recommendations for reform to the country’s Electoral Commission in a bid to avoid another long legal battle in future after a national election.
Lead council for the petitioners, Philip Addison, in an exclusive interview with citifmonline.com, says: “One year down the line, we are still where we started from. We have the same team there being as recalcitrant as ever. Afari Gyan does not listen to anybody, he always needs a court order to act.”
By: citifmonline.com/Ghana