The Supreme Court has once again adjourned an application for injunction seeking to restrain the Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson, from further participating in parliamentary sittings.
The application was adjourned to await the decision of a review panel on an application for review filed by Tsatsu Tsikata, challenging the ordinary bench’s March 8 decision to dismiss the lawyer’s preliminary objection about compliance with the court’s order regarding substituted service of the processes.
Mr. Tsikata, before moving the application for review, told the court he had filed an application for leave to file supplementary statement of case, partly due to some developments at the Cape Coast Court of Appeal in relation to the case before the apex court.
A member of the panel, Justice Nene Amegatcher, asked Mr. Tsikata why he was filing his processes in piecemeal, and the lawyer said that was not the case but rather due to the fact that some of the cases he relied on in the supplement are unreported cases, and he only obtained certified true copies of those decisions after the date had been set.
Justice Jones Dotse, the president of the panel suggested that he can rely on the cases in the supplementary statement of case and make copies available to the court, but Mr. Tsikata said that will not suffice.
Frank Davies, counsel for Michael Ankomah-Nimfa, the applicant, opposed the application and stated that Mr. Tsikata could not wait until the day of hearing before filing for leave to file supplement.
He said if Mr. Tsikata had any point of law to urge on the court, he can do so without need to file any supplements.
A nine-member panel of the court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse and assisted by Justices Agnes Dordzie, Nene Amegatcher, Prof Nii Ashie Kotey, Mariama Owusu, Gertrude Torkornoo, Clemence Honyenuga, Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, and Yonni Kulendi after a long break granted the leave and adopted the drafted supplement as a duly filed process.
Mr. Tsikata then moved the motion and argued that the long line of cases cited in their statements make it quite clear that the errors he was bringing to the attention of the court render the proceedings complained of, a nullity.
He said what was published in the Daily Graphic was different from what the court ordered as there was an insertion of something that was not ordered by the court.
The review motion was opposed by Mr. Davies, who also argued that no exceptional circumstances at all have occasioned any miscarriage of justice in the matter.
He said the records emanating from the court indicate that the MP had notice of the processes and the review motion was only rearguing what had already been pronounced upon by the court.
The panel adjourned the case to April 5 to rule on the review motion.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak