Member of Parliament for the Bolgatanga East Constituency, Dr. Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, has strongly defended his posture during proceedings in court today Wednesday, that got him rebuked by the Chief Justice, Anin Yeboah.
Though, a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) legal team, he is not part of the legal counsel for the party’s flagbearer, John Mahama in the 2020 election petition.
During proceedings in court earlier today, Chief Justice Anin Yeboah, sounded caution to Dr.Ayine for allegedly miming in a bid to give a clue to his lead counsel Tsatsu Tsikata.
But interacting with the media shortly after sitting, the former Deputy Attorney General under erstwhile Mahama administration defended his action; saying he gave the said posture in a quest to draw the attention of President Akufo-Addo’s lawyer, Akoto Ampaw, not to accept what he (Ayine) describe as tight timeline given by the Chief Justice.
According to him, the vast experience he has in court proceedings forced him to give such a gesture.
Dr. Ayine opined that the timeline given to them for case management was limited and could undermine justice delivery.
He emphasized that the 42 days timeline given by law is ample enough to administer justice on the case; and therefore, shutdown arguments by their opponents that the NDC was not prepared.
“The fact that we spent eight months dealing with the first presidential election petition does not mean that now everything that we do must be geared towards attaining a speedy trial at the expense of fairness- and I think this is a very worrying development.”
“The court itself has indicated that we have 42 days to complete this trial; it means that in the wisdom of the drafters of the rules, 42 days is sufficient for purposes of conducting a trial in relation to a presidential petition. You cannot now begin to truncate and deny the parties the right to be able to for instance file preliminary applications that are mandated and allowed by law just because you want a speedy trial.”
“To be honest with you I was shocked at what was happening and you all realized that the chief justice singled me out that my body language was inappropriate; but that is because I was very shocked because after twenty-five years of law practice, I have never seen this happened that a court would arbitrarily announce timelines for parties without consultation. I had occasioned to ask Mr.Akoto Ampaw why he did not object to the tight deadlines.”
Meanwhile, the court has adjourned the case to Tuesday, January 26, 2021.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Elijah Beyeni Yenibey|Ghana
