Chief Justice Anin Yeboah
The seven-member Supreme Court panel sitting on the election petition, in which the 2020 flagbearer of the NDC, John Dramani Mahama, is challenging the declaration of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, will today, Tuesday January 26, decide whether to put the hearing of the main case on hold or otherwise.
The petitioner last week filed an application for stay of proceedings, until a determination is made on his request for a review on the dismissal of his application for interrogatories, which was dismissed by the court.
Objection
President Akufo-Addo, the second respondent in the case, however, objected to the application for stay of proceedings, urging the court to go ahead to hear the case and dismiss same.
In a document signed by Kwaku Asirifi, one of President Akufo-Addo’s lawyers, he described the request by Mr Mahama as “unmeritorious and calculated to stall the hearing of the petition”.
According to President Akufo-Addo, Mr Mahama was well aware of the strict 42-day timeline imposed on the Supreme Court to deal with the election petitions.
His lawyers argue that the request was deliberately made late, all as part of a plot to stampede the clear timelines imposed on the Supreme Court. They contend that Mr Mahama could have filed his interrogatories request shortly after filing his petition on December 30, 2020 or, at least, on January 9 when he received the EC and President Akufo-Addo’s response.
“There are no exceptional circumstances occasioning a miscarriage of justice that warrant the grant of the instant application for stay of proceedings,” they further argue.
Review
Lawyers for former President Mahama on Wednesday, last week, filed an application asking the court to review its decision that disallowed them from asking the Electoral Commission (EC) 12 questions in the petition.
Mr Mahama had sought to ask the court to grant leave for the 1st respondent to answer 12 questions regarding the declaration of the presidential election results.
But according to the court, the interrogatories were irrelevant to the case, arguing that the crucial issues of relevance of the application had not been established by the petitioner.
The court added that it is strictly bound to comply with C.I. 99, which mandates it to deal with the petition within 42 days.
But lawyers for Mr Mahama said the court erred in the dismissal of the application for interrogatories, hence the decision to seek review.
They argued that the court should have exercised its discretionary powers in accordance with Article 296 of the Constitution, which requires an authority vested with discretionary power to be fair and candid. They further argued that the court got it wrong yet again when it took the view that the current rules requiring expeditious trial mean even amendments are not allowed.
They again attacked the court’s decision by arguing that nothing in the current Rule CI 99 supports the view the court took that interrogatories are not permitted.
Witness statements
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the EC and the 2020 NPP campaign manager, Peter Mac Manu, last Friday filed their witness statements. That followed the direction by the court on the petitioner and the respondents to file their statements as part of the timelines announced by the court to deal with the case.
The court asked Mr Mahama (petitioner) to file his witness statement by noon of Thursday while the respondents were to file theirs on Friday.
Although the petitioner failed to file his witness statement, contrary to the orders of the court, following his application for stay of proceedings, both the first and second respondents have filed theirs.
Preliminary objection
President Akufo-Addo has also filed his preliminary objection statement. In the statement, he notes that some of Mr Mahama’s arguments are exaggerated and absurd, and urges the court to dismiss the case since it is a waste of time.
“At the heart of the case of Petitioner are the unfounded and exaggerated extrapolations petitioner makes out of the erroneous interchanging of total votes cast for total valid votes cast [by the Electoral Commission] when declaring the results of the Presidential Election on 9th December 2020,” the President argued.
On Techiman South results, based on which Mr Mahama launched his election petition, the President said, “this simply defies logic and is utterly untenable.”
“In effect, petitioner entreats the Court to embark on a fruitless exercise to order a second election based on a skewed hypothetical analysis which completely ignores the actual votes obtained by himself as well as all other candidates in the Techiman South Constituency.
“Effectively, the petitioner’s claims are anchored on unfounded hypothesis, conjectures and imagination,” the President stated.
“There is no challenge mounted by the petitioner about the conduct of the election at the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centres in the country,” he added.
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