“Friend of the Court”, Benoni Tony Amekudzi Tuesday failed once again to stop the Supreme Court from proceeding with the Election Petition challenging the legitimacy of President John Mahama.
Amekudzi told the Court that the 1992 Constitution, being the supreme law of the land, protects the sitting President from being sued or being joined in any litigation processes before the court and was therefore improper that the Court should entertain the present election petition filed by three members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
But the Court held that there was no ground whatsoever to review its earlier ruling and that where the court was prompted to have taken up the issue by itself, Mr. Amekudzi patently lacked the ‘locus standi’ to apply for the review.
Mr Amekudze was unsuccessful on May 2, when he applied for leave of the court in an amicus curiae application to move a motion to stop the hearing.
On that occasion the court held that Article 64, on which he based his application was a special constitutional provision that did not apply to his case. He was also told he failed to file his affidavit evidence to support his case as per the rules of the court and was therefore not properly before the court.
In his review application, Amekudzi contended that per a number of precedents, the President after he was sworn into office as the father of the nation cannot and should not be part of the present petition.
He said since it was a well-established position of the law, he expected the court to have taken up the matter and thus decline jurisdiction to the petition filed by Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufo-Addo, NPP presidential candidate in the 2012 general election; Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate of the party and Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey, NPP chairman.
Not even several interventions and directions from the bench would deter the determined Amekudzi, who spoke with such verve and style that one of judges had to ‘plead’ with him to bring his pronunciations to the Ghanaian level for all to understand.
Counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison did not oppose the application but chose to leave it in the capable hands of the court, while counsel for the respondents, Messrs.’ Tony Lithur, James Quashie-Idun, and Tsatsu Tsikata all opposed the application and urged that it be dismissed.
While Lithur said the applicant failed to invoke the Court’s review jurisdiction properly, Tsatsu maintained his earlier submission that the applicant be treated as an inter-meddler whose admission was only going to needlessly delay the petition hearing.
Justice William Atuguba, Chairman of the panel of judges read the decision of the court as follows;
“When invoking our review jurisdiction, we prefer to look at the substance thereof, we consider it on its merit. As far the refusal to grant him leave to intervene as Amicus Curiae is concerned, there are no grounds whatsoever for reviewing our earlier ruling. That remains the issue that the court itself should have raised the point. Even there the applicant first needs locus standi to apply for this review which he patently lacks, however the constitution being a fundamental law and this court having jurisdiction under Article 129 Clause 3, to depart from its decisions on point of law, we deem it meet to give some thought to the matter. We think that Article 64 is a unique and special provision as we held in our earlier ruling and nothing that has been urged on us moves us to change our position to that effect. The application is accordingly dismissed.”
Source: Graphic.com.gh
