Bediatuo's disinterest; Dotse's advice and vanishing Attorney

For a Court reporter, covering the Supreme can sometimes be a challenging and frustrating experience.

This is especially true on days when high profile cases are lined up yet you leave court with little or no leads.

It is in these that some judges jump to your rescue forcing a smile that you lost as things progress.
On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, was one of such days. 

The cases were lined up one after another, yet your only lead was either file legal arguments or adjourned sine die; or so it seemed until the Judges started complaining and Attorneys started vanishing without a trace leaving colleagues with the age old excuse.

Adinyira's beef

The first case was one filed by Elikplim Lorlormavor Agbemava challenging the scope of the constitutionally conferred power to pardon of the President of Ghana.

He sent the case after concerns emerged about the decision of former President John Mahama to pardon three gentlemen who have become known as the Montie 3.

The three gentlemen were jailed three months each by a Supreme Court panel presided over by current Chief Justice Sophia Akufo.

The three, a former colleague Mugabe Maase, NDC communicator Godwin Ako Gunn and the ever passionate Alistair Tairo Nelson were found liable of Contempt of court for comments made on radio.

Even though the sentence at the time was widely criticized as harsh, the decision of former President John Mahama to cut short their sentence with a pardon received mixed reactions.

The pardon became a political bullet that the opposition deployed in what turned out to be a successful assassination of former President Mahama's second term ambition.

Despite the criticism, the issue of whether the former Ghanaian leader exercised his power to pardon capriciously was left to a public referendum.

Elikplim Agbemava, a lawyer left a lot of persons shocked with his decision to carrying the debate into the Supreme Court by filing a case challenging the decision to pardon the Montie 3 holding the view that the then President exceeded his powers.

Before I move on, I would like to issue a disclaimer; nothing about his reliefs demanded that the 3 jailed men return to jail.

That claim was made by the man who is currently the President's Executive Secretary Nana Asante Bediatuo. 

Nana had managed to successfully hijack Elikplim's suit by filing a similar suit and getting it much wider press coverage. 

So the modest case that Elikplim filed became the case of Nana seeking to get the Supreme Court to order the Montie 3 to return to jail even though none of suits made any such demand and such an order from the court would be excessive.

Fast forward to March 20, 2018, more than a year after the case has been filed and it is yet to make a single progress.

This is largely due to the feet dragging of Nana Asante Bediatuo and the AG; perhaps because Nana has lost interest in a case that may trim the powers taken up by his namesake due to the magic of the 2016 elections. 

So for more than a year, I have followed as the three parties involved made little progress in deciding on the issues that Supreme Court should rule; leaving Elikplim frustrated in addition to being rendered an outsider in a case he originally instituted.

Until March 20, it felt like Elikplim was the only one frustrated with the case; I can report that the Judges are not enthused.

The Presiding Judge Justice Sophia Adinyira made it a case to remind the media men in the courtroom that it is the party's that are delaying the case and asked the media to report that.

This is refreshing especially after she ordered that the issues stage be concluded by March 28, 2018; so we continue to wait.

Dotse's advice

The other occurrence of note still relates to another suit filed by Elikplim Agbemava that relates to the ex-gratia arrangement of Ghana’s parliament.

Under the current arrangement, MPs take ex-gratia every 4 years; not minding whether they are still in Parliament.

Elikplim believes that the arrangement is inconsistent with the Constitution.

He believes the Constitution intended exgratia to be terminal; to be received once the MP leaves the house and not on the expiration of the term of a parliament.

Interestingly, even though this case was filed after the Montie 3 one, it surpassed the issues stage on March 20; in fact, the Supreme Court has ordered that the parties file legal arguments within 21 days.

Step in Justice Jones Dotse with a question.

He asked "has parliament been informed of the case?"

The question barely received a response from the State Attorney who announced herself.

Justice Jones Dotse who announced that he was once a State Attorney indicated it was ideal that MPs, whose benefits may be affected, be made aware of the case.

According to him that was the practice when he was a State Attorney and advised that the AG's department consult parliament on the issue.

Speaking for me, it would be surprising if the august house has not been informed of the case.

Where is Grace Oppong?

Grace Oppong is the State Attorney handling two cases filed by Elikplim Agbemava seeking interpretation and enforcement of the 1992 Constitution.

She was however conspicuously missing yesterday when they were called.

The interesting aspect was that the Supreme Court Judges were so sure they had seen her.

Even though this vanishing act is not rare with State Attorneys because of the ridiculous workload they are made to bear, it should not be so common at the Supreme Court.

I am particularly impressed with the extent of understanding extended to State Attorney by the Judges of the highest court on the land.