Director for Legal for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, is ‘extremely grateful’ to the Supreme Court after it among others instructed a High Court judge, Justice Joseph Adu Owusu Agyeman, to stay away from the case involving results of some nine constituencies.
The apex court yesterday December 27 directed that, a different judge sits on the mandamus brought before the High Court by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that saw the judge order for re-collation of results for the troubled constituencies.
This comes after the opposition party rushed to the Supreme Court to Stay the Execution of the said order and also raised issues of bias against the judge.
According to the NDC, the judge knowing very well they had filed to be part of the suit refused to grant them the opportunity to state their case before taking a final decision, knowing very well that they were going to be affected any way by his conclusion.
“We are grateful to the apex court, at least it has restored sanity in the process that was going on at the High Court and that for us is what we are grateful to the apex court. I want to thank my able co-counsels here, my seniors who accompanied us to court today for this one. At least fairness is done today and that is all we were calling for this one”, he said after the ruling.
Giving it landmark ruling on the matter, the presiding judge of the 5-member Supreme Court panel, Justice Gabriel Pwamang even though disagreed with concerns of bias said the judge breached the rule of natural justice.
He said it was wrong for the judge to have disallowed the NDC to join the NPP’s mandamus when the opposition party is an interested party.
Justice Pwamang said “We hereby direct that the application for mandamus that have a stand shall be placed before a different High Court judge”.
In his reaction, Mr Tameklo said regardless of the fact that the apex court did not agree with their claim of bias, with examples, party was satisfied that the judge has been removed from the case adding in his view it was enough punishment for him.
“The fact that we had to go to the High Court, what strategies we are going to deploy, I will not disclose it I just want to thank the court for this.
I understand policy rational, I mean making a definite finding of bias against a judge obviously is not an easy stuff but we made the point. The point that the court itself agrees that he should not hear the matter again and that is enough rebuke of the entire process that he actually supervised and that for us is significant”.
He urged supporters of the NDC especially those in two constituencies in the Ashanti and Eastern to stay calm as they lead the party in the law court from Tuesday December 31 to bring justice to Ghanaians.
“But I will urge our party supporters in Ahafo Ano and Suhum to stay calm and watch what we will be doing going forward.
They should stay calm we will take it up from there. What is this mean is that all the declarations, collations that happened that are founded on those orders have all been set aside, significant”.
The Supreme Court thus by a 5: 0 unanimous decision quashed the High Court ruling that ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to re-collate some nine (9) constituency results seven (7) of which were declared for the NPP.
It set aside four constituency results namely Ablekuma North, Tema Central, Techiman South and Okaikei South.
But the apex court upheld the results of the Nsawam Adoagyiri and the AhafoAno North consistencies. The case continues with a different judge on Tuesday 31 by that time the NDC would have filed their response and then proceed from there.
The EC is yet to decide on the Dome Kwabenya and Ablekuma North constituencies involving pink sheet after it meeting with the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) ended in a stalemate.