Former President John Dramani
Mahama has filed an application urging the Supreme Court to put on hold his
petition in connection with the 2020 presidential election.
Mr Mahama wants the court to
halt the proceedings until it makes a determination on a review application
challenging the court’s refusal to compel the Chairperson of the Electoral
Commission (EC), Mrs Jean Adukwei Mensa, to testify in the petition.
It is the contention of the
petitioner that the review application was likely to succeed, and, therefore,
failure to halt the trial would cause him an “irreplaceable harm”.
Suspend orders
Per the application to stay
proceedings, Mr Mahama wants the court to suspend its orders for the parties
(Mr Mahama, the EC and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo) to file their
legal addresses by today.
“For us to have to file closing
addresses when there is a pending issue to be determined in the review
application about whether or not my lawyers will cross-examine the Chairperson
of the first respondent would cause irreplaceable harm to the conduct of my
case,” he said.
Former President Mahama filed
the application for review and the one for stay of proceedings yesterday,
barely an hour after the Supreme Court dismissed his application seeking
permission to re-open his case in order to subpoena Mrs Mensa to testify.
The court is expected to hear the application for stay of
proceedings and review tomorrow.
Ruling
On February 11, this year, the
apex court overruled an objection by lead counsel for the petitioner, Mr Tsatsu
Tsikata, challenging the decision of the respondents not to call any witnesses
to adduce evidence.
In the unanimous ruling, the
seven-member panel held that the rules of court and decided cases did not
clothe it with the powers to compel a party to adduce evidence if the party
opted not to do that.
“The law is, therefore, settled
that a party will not be compelled to enter the witness box and testify in
support of his or her own case,” the court ruled.
Review
However, in his review
application, Mr Mahama attacked the ruling, describing it as one that had
occasioned a “grave miscarriage of justice”.
He premised his review on the
grounds that the decision of the court not to call the Chairperson of the EC to
testify violated Section 26 of the Evidence Act and Articles 19(13) and 296 of
the Constitution, and that the court failed to appreciate the crucial
constitutional role of Mrs Mensa as the Chairperson of the EC and hence the
need for her to testify.
“The court fundamentally erred
in putting forward positions which were not what counsel for respondents had
put before the Court in respect of their case,” he argued.
Interest of justice
The petitioner urged the court
to uphold his review application on the basis that it met the exceptional
circumstance threshold as required for review applications to succeed.
Mr Mahama further invited the
court to rule in his favour in the interest of justice.
“In our respectful submission,
each of the grounds of our application for review has been established. We are,
therefore, inviting the Lordships respectfully to acknowledge the exceptional
circumstances herein and review their ruling of February 11, 2021.
“It is undoubtedly in the
interest of justice that the Chairperson of first Respondent (EC) testifies in
these proceedings,” Mr Mahama stated.
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