One of the defence lawyers in the trial of former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Stephen Opuni, has filed a motion on notice to stay the trial pending the determination of an interlocutory appeal of the judge’s decision.
Benson Nutsukpui, counsel for Seidu Agongo, one of the accused persons in the trial, filed the motion to challenge the decision of the trial judge, Justice Clemence Honyenugah, to reject a document they intended to tender in evidence.
On February 25, 2019, the lawyer attempted to tender in evidence a report by an ad hoc committee set up by the Cocoa Research Institute Ghana (CRIG) to look into some documents relating to the Lithovit fertilizer.
There was a back and forth between the defence lawyer and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Yvonne Attakora-Obuobisa regarding the tendering of a report by the committee that investigated some missing documents, which include correspondence between Agricult Ghana Limited and CRIG.
While Mr. Nutsukpui insisted that the document was vital to the defence of his client, the DPP maintained that Dr. Arthur is not the right person to tender the document through.
She said the witness is not the author of the report and there has not been any indication that the authors of the report are not available.
Admitting the report through Dr. Arthur, according to the DPP, will sin against the Evidence Act as his evidence to it could be treated as hearsay.
Justice Honyenugah upheld the objection and rejected the report.
According to him, the committee at CRIG was not set up upon the request of his court and that he thought the defence counsel would rather have applied to the court for an order for the authors of the report to be invited to tender the said report and be subjected to scrutiny.
He said the document is also not the handiwork of the witness and that since the authors of the document are available and still in their official employment, admitting the document will offend against the hearsay rule Section 116, 118, 126 of the Evidence Act.
“I think that it will be unfair to tender a document through a witness who does not know anything about the document. It is also my opinion that documents filed before this court do not mean that they could be admitted without regards to the rules,” Justice Honyenugah added.
But the defence lawyer has filed a motion to challenge the decision, hoping to get the CRIG ad hoc committee report tendered in evidence.
He has subsequently filed a motion on notice to have the proceedings at the High Court stayed pending the determination of the motion at the Court of Appeals.
But it turned out that the Office of the AG was not served with the motion on notice to stay the proceedings as confirmed by the DPP.
The court, therefore, ordered Mr. Nutsukpui to serve the AG and Dr. Opuni’s lawyer with the motion.
The matter has been adjourned to March 13, 2019, for the motion on notice for stay of proceedings to be heard.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak