A former President of the Ghana Bar Association and renowned lawyer,
Samuel Okudzeto, has stated that his analysis of the 588 paged
judgment, handed down by the Supreme Court on the presidential
election petition, reveals that the judgment went 5-4 in favour of the
petitioners. At a symposium organized by the Danquah Institute to
review the Supreme Court's decision in the election petition filed by
Nana Akufo- Addo, Sam Okudzeto stated that the judgment handed down by
Justice Atuguba did not establish the fact that the petitioners lost
the case. He was therefore at a loss as to how the Atuguba Court came
about the decision that the petitioners lost the case. In explaining
his analysis, he stated that before the commencement of the
substantive case, the Supreme Court set out only two issues for
determination which were (1) Whether or not there are statutory
violations in the nature of omissions, irregularities and malpractices
in the conduct of the Presidential Elections held on the 7th and 8th
December 2012; and (2) Whether or not the said statutory violations,
if any, affected the results of the elections. According to Sam
Okudzeto, Justices Atuguba, Adinyirah, Gbadegbe and Akoto-Bamfo,
dismissed, unanimously, all the six grounds of infractions filed by
the petitioners in the court and as such decided to sustain President
Mahama as the duly elected President. He noted, however, that Justices
Ansah, Owusu and Anin-Yeboah were of the opinion that President Mahama
wasn't duly elected, as contained in their judgments. This, according
to him, meant that 4 judges had ruled for John Mahama, whilst 3 had
ruled that John Mahama wasn't duly elected. "What happened to the
other two? This is where the issue becomes dicey," he noted. Sam
Okudzeto stated that Justice Dotse, in page 405 of the judgment,
dismissed the claims of the petitioners with regards to the use
duplicate serial numbers, voting without biometric verification,
unknown polling stations and duplicate polling station results.
However, Justice Dotse, Sam Okudzeto noted, upheld the claims of the
petitioners in the categories of no signatures of presiding officers
as well as in over-voting and ordered a re- run of the elections in
the affected polling stations. Touching on Justice Baffoe- Bonnie's
judgment where he dismissed all the claims of the petitioners, Sam
Okudzeto stated that Justice Baffoe- Bonnie upheld the petitioners'
claims of voting without biometric verification, and ordered a re-run
of the election in the affected polling stations. Thus, as per the
issues set out by the court, Sam Okudzeto noted that it was clear from
the judgment that 5 of the Supreme Court judges determined that the
irregularities affected the elections whereas 4 of the judges noted
that the irregularities did not. This, in his opinion, established the
fact that the judgment handed down by the Supreme Court judges went
5-4 in favour of the petitioners.
HMMMM So this case is still alive….?
CULLED FROM JOYONLINE
