James Gyakye Quayson
THE SUSPENDED Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyekye Quayson, has renewed his fight against the judge sitting on his criminal trial before an Accra High Court.
He has through his lawyer filed an application for review seeking the Supreme Court to reverse its previous decision not to prohibit Justice Yanzuh from presiding over his trial.
Mr. Quayson has been charged, among others, for deceiving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by making a false statement that he did not have a dual citizenship, in order to acquire a Ghanaian passport.
He has also been charged with perjury for making a false statement at Assin Fosu, that he does not owe allegiance to any country other than Ghana, a statement he did not have a reason to believe to be true at the time of making it.
Again, the embattled MP has been charged for making a false declaration for office when he knowingly said he does not owe allegiance to any country other than Ghana, for the purpose of obtaining a public office as a Member of Parliament, a statement he knew to be material for obtaining that office.
His lawyer, Tsatsu Tsikata, in the course of the trial, challenged the witness statement of the prosecution’s first witness, arguing that he did not have capacity to adduce those facts in what would be his evidence-in-chief before the court.
He also asked the court to strike out three of the five charges levelled against the accused on grounds that they relate to matters that require constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court.
The trial judge dismissed the application stating that the witness was competent to speak to those matters and subsequently admitted the witness statements and the paragraphs complained about.
Mr. Tsikata then filed a motion for certiorari seeking to quash the decision of the trial court and also sought an order to prohibit Justice Mary Yanzuh from continuing to sit on the matter.
The motion was opposed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, who argued that the applicant had failed to properly invoke the Supervisory Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
She said the accused through his lawyer failed to show that there was a patent or fundamental error that goes to jurisdiction, and that the judge acted within jurisdiction in holding that the witness was a competent witness.
She relied on Sections 60(2), 111, and 112 of the Evidence Act and indicated that the evidence is personal knowledge and need not consist of the testimony of the witness himself.
She contended that, even if the said adoption of the statements by the trial judge was wrong, it does not constitute a fundamental error and, thus, described the application as frivolous and ought to be dismissed.
A five-member panel of the court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse dismissed the application on ground that it had no merit.
It is this decision that the beleaguered MP is challenging at the Supreme Court. It has been scheduled for March 1, 2023, for hearing after both Mr. Tsikata and Mrs. Obuobisa indicated to the court that they only got the court’s previous decision on January 16 and 17 respectively.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak