Kissi Agyebeng, Special Prosecutor
The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a review application by the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Searchlight Newspaper, Kenneth Kwabena Agyei Kuranchie, challenging the constitutionality of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
He was seeking the Supreme Court to overturn its earlier decision which barred him from reapplying after he had withdrawn an earlier case in June this year and then filed a similar one in July.
Mr. Kuranchie had gone to court arguing that Act 959 which established the OSP was unconstitutional hence urged the court to scrap it and place it under the control of the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice, similar to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Police, and National Intelligence Bureau (NIB).
The OSP is an anti-corruption agency with police powers and independent prosecutorial authority, established in 2018 to investigate and prosecute specific cases of grand corruption and corruption-related offences involving public officers, politically exposed persons, and private sector individuals.
It is also tasked with recovering proceeds of corruption, and to take steps to prevent corruption.
Mr. Kuranchie filed a writ in September 2023 asking the court to declare that the creation of the OSP and its powers is unconstitutional.
He sought to argue that the OSP’s power of arrest, detention, freezing, and seizure is unlawful and abusive.
He sought among others, a declaration that the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959) is contrary to Articles 11, 17 Clauses 1, 2 and 3.
He claimed essentially that the establishment of the OSP violated several articles of the 1992 Constitution and should be declared null and void.
He, however, discontinued the writ in June 2024 and rather filed a new one in July this year, seeking the same reliefs against the Attorney General and the OSP.
He failed to file a statement of case for months and subsequently sought to withdraw the writ.
But a 7-member panel of the court presided over by the Chief Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo struck the writ out without a liberty to reapply.
The Court then stated that the OSP should not be encumbered with such suits and should be allowed to function.
Mr. Kuranchie then filed a review application requesting the court to overturn its earlier decision barring him from reapplying.
But the court after hearing arguments from all parties dismissed the review application in a unanimous decision for lacking merit.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak