[contextly_sidebar id=”85hUzgQS4PeVeI8Wmvr6cR8tB7ne8z2X”]Several persons, including the Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Tetteh<\/strong><\/a><\/span> as well as her party the National Democratic Congress<\/strong><\/span><\/a> (NDC) have stated that the sentence handed to the three is\u00a0harsh.<\/p>\n The lawyers for the Montie FM panelists\u00a0say they\u00a0intend to\u00a0petition President Mahama<\/span>\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>to pardon their clients prompting the opening of the petition book today [Thursday].<\/p>\n The book, opened by a group calling itself the\u00a0Research and Advocacy Platform (RAP), has garnered several signatures<\/strong><\/span><\/a> including those of high-profile government officials including the Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare and the\u00a0Head of the Presidential Delivery Unit, Valerie Sawyerr.<\/p>\n However, according to\u00a0Denis Adjei Dwomoh, their efforts may be in vain as the president might not have the constitutional mandate to grant the three men their freedom.<\/p>\n He explained on Eyewitness News <\/strong>that the section of the constitution that gave the president the power to release incarcerated persons applies to only criminal cases and not the case of the Montie FM trio.<\/p>\n “The power that you are seeking for the president to exercise is under Article 72 of the 1992 constitution. It talks about the President acting in consultation with the Council of State, to grant to a person convicted of an offence a pardon.”<\/p>\n “When the constitution in Article 72 talks about an offence, it relates to a criminal offence and when you go to section 17 of the transitional provisions of the constitution, it quite clearly throws light on the fact that when the constitution contemplates offences under Article 72, it\u2019s about criminal offence. When it comes to the curtailment of the liberty of the individual, so long as it did not relate to they being convicted for a criminal offence under the law of Ghana, but in terms of a court exercising its powers and jurisdiction, the president cannot exercise that power because the qualification must relate to an offence as defined in the criminal code or any other statute that has been so defined.”<\/p>\n One of the lawyers for the trio, George Loh, has dismissed these suggestions, stating that it was well within the rights of his clients to seek the president’s intervention on their situation.<\/p>\n “It is not illegal or unconstitutional for citizens of this country to make an appeal to the president to show mercy, powers that he has under the constitution.He has done it several time for people on health grounds, during popular anniversaries, national holidays so what will be so different if an appeal is made to the president \u00a0and by his assessment and in consultation with the Council of State, he thinks that something must be done and therefore as father of the nation he shows compassion on his children” he said on Eyewitness News.<\/strong><\/p>\n Some members of the NDC, who many believe the station sympathizes with, \u00a0on Thursday protested at the party’s\u00a0headquarters \u00a0requesting a Presidential pardon for the the three or risk losing their votes<\/strong><\/a><\/span> in the December polls.<\/p>\n![\"Montie\"](\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Montie.jpg\")
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