Montie 3; Disentangling the entangled

The first thing that occurred to me when I first saw Elikplim Agbemava 2020 posters is his motive for filing the constitutional case against the pardon granted to the Montie 3.

That question is coming up now but with an interesting twist; Elikplim Agbemava is being accused of conniving with Executive Secretary to the President Nana Asante Bediatuo to attempt get the Montie 3 jailed again.

Whiles, I note that Elikplim Agbemava has publicly responded to the “connivance” allegation, I would like to contribute to the debate by sharing portions of an article I wrote on this same subject matter in my article titled; Bediatuo's disinterest; Dotse's advice and vanishing Attorney.

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 remit the sentences three gentlemen who have become known as the Montie 3.

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

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 remission received more than mixed reactions.

The remission 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.

Lawyer Elikplim Agbemava, left a lot of persons in awe 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 Asante Bediatuo seeking to get the Supreme Court to order the Montie 3 to return to jail even though none of the suits made any such demand and such an order from the court would be excessive.

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

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 the 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.