Martin Amidu
Former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu has accused Kissi Agyebeng, the Special Prosecutor (SP) of abusing court processes in the cases involving former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah and her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffuor.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) is before the High Court seeking a confirmation order for the seizure and freezing of the properties and bank accounts of Madam Dapaah.
Ghana’s founding Special Prosecutor, Mr. Amidu is at loss at why Mr. Agyebeng would file an application for certiorari at the Supreme Court to quash the decision of the High Court without including a request for prohibition of Justice Edward Twum from continuing to preside over cases being prosecuted by the OSP.
According to him, no Special Prosecutor unless he was intent on grievous mischief in abuse of the court process would have filed the certiorari without asking for a prohibition of the trial judge.
According to him, the OSP’s earlier petition to the Chief Justice to remove the judge from the case and all other OSP cases is an administrative option exercised which would have been superseded by an application for prohibition by the Supreme Court if the OSP was minded to include it in its certiorari application.
He said the Special Prosecutor knew or ought to have known that bringing the certiorari application in the Supreme Court would cause a further delay in the hearing of his substantive application for confirmation of seizure and freezing orders
“The conduct of the Special Prosecutor is very serious abuse of the process of the courts. Certiorari is a discretionary relief that the Supreme Court may grant against decisions of any other superior court for error of law on the face of the record which includes breaches of the rule of natural justice and its concomitant requirement against partiality and real likelihood of bias in the adjudicators of cases,” Mr. Amidu wrote in his latest criticism of the OSP.
There was confusion before an Accra High Court on October 8, 2023 due to a miscommunication about the pendency of a petition the OSP sent to the Chief Justice to remove the trial judge from the case and all other cases of the OSP.
The court had indicated that it was informed the petition had been withdrawn, moments after Dr. Isidore Tuffuor, the Director of Prosecution at the OSP informed the court that they had filed an application for certiorari at the Supreme Court to challenge the court decision to abridge the hearing of the case to October 12, instead of October 18, 2023.
Dr. Tuffour later informed the court that his attention had been drawn to the fact that the petition had not been withdrawn and Justice Twumasi after a meeting with the parties in his chambers later informed the court that his attention had been drawn that the petition was not officially withdrawn and subsequently adjourned the case indefinitely.
Mr. Amidu who is not impressed with the turn of events said, “The Supreme Court, sitting en banc as a court of at least five justices, has the power in a supervisory application before it to grant an order of prohibition restraining the particular High Court and the Judge from hearing all the cases the OSP had petitioned the Chief Justice for her oneperson administrative relief,” he wrote.
He further pointed out that the “Chief Justice exercises administrative discretion when she considers petitions; she does not have the powers of a court and would be interfering with cases pending before the Supreme Court by purporting to decide on the petition which has been mooted by the pending application for certiorari.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak