Kpessa Whyte
A member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Prof. Michael Kpessa Whyte, has been cited for contempt by the Supreme Court over comments he made on social media platform Twitter allegedly calling the apex court “stupid”.
The University of Ghana lecturer is to appear before the highest court of the land on May 30, 2023, to show cause why he should not be punished for the comments which sought to bring the court disaffection and denigrate its reputation.
The summon issued by the court alleges that Prof. Kpessa Whyte on May 19, 2023, made disparaging comments on his Twitter handle, including one which read: “The highest Court of the Land has been turned into a ‘Stupid Court’.”
The alleged comments were made two days after the Supreme Court directed Parliament to expunge the name of now disqualified Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson, from its records, declaring his election null and void.
The summons also list among others, comments such as: “They have succeeded in turning a Supreme Court into a Stupid Court. Common – sense is now a scarce commodity.”
“A major element in the death of democracies is partisanship in the delivery of justice.
Our judges need lessons in political philosophy and ethics. Time will tell.”
Attached to the summons are a series of publications by online portals resulting from the unsuccessful Shai Osudoku parliamentary candidate hopeful’s posts.
Apology
Although Prof. Kpessa White is yet to appear before the court, he has issued an apology and retracted the comments and had gone ahead to delete the tweets.
“I have observed that Ghanaweb and other media publications sought to associate my tweet with the decision of the Supreme Court in the Assin North matter as stated on the face of the Summons to show cause, but honestly at the time of my tweet, I had no knowledge of the Supreme Court’s decision as at 9: 59am when I did the tweet,” he indicated in a statement.
He further indicated that, “Sincerely, the tweet was not done with the intent to scandalise, or denigrate a revered institution such as the Supreme Court of Ghana for which I have tremendous amount of respect and admiration. These are consequences I never intended, although I do accept responsibility that, I could have exercised better judgment in my choice of words.”
“Please permit me to state unequivocally that I have no reason to slander our Supreme Court and I hereby sincerely apologise unreservedly for any pain and discomfort my tweets may have caused the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court and the entire judiciary,” Prof. Kpessa White added.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak