Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
An Accra High Court has dismissed an application for contempt of court initiated against Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, by Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng, Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral Secretariat.
The dismissal is as a result of what the court described as the applicant’s inability to prove that the MP’s alleged refusal to receive the court process and subsequently kicking it with his foot constituted a contempt of court.
The court, presided over by Justice Charles Gyenfi Dankwa, also held that the application was full of inconsistencies which inure to the benefit of the MP.
Rev. Kusi Boateng was asking the court to commit the MP to prison for treating “court processes with disdain and disrespect” when he openly threw a court process to the floor and also kicked it with his foot after he was served with the processes at the premises of Metro TV in Accra.
Rev. Kusi on February 1, 2023, secured an interim injunction prohibiting Mr. Ablakwa from making “further public disclosure of private document, correspondence, communication and property belonging to the applicant.”
The MP had in the past weeks been challenging what he called the double identity of Rev. Kusi under the names ‘Kwabena Adu Gyamfi’ and ‘Victor Kusi Boateng’.
Mr. Ablakwa, on Monday, January 16, petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to probe the GH¢2.6 million paid to JNS Talent, a company owned by Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng under a different identity.
Ruling
Justice Dankwa, in his ruling, said there was no prove of service on the court’s docket showing that the MP was served with the contempt processes.
The court also said there were inconsistencies with the chronology of events as narrated by the applicant and the person who allegedly served the application.
The court also found that the processes were served by a person who is not a Judicial Service bailiff, which is against a directive by the Chief Justice that such processes must be served by Judicial Service bailiffs.
Justice Dankwa subsequently dismissed the application for contempt and awarded a cost of GH¢10,000 against Rev. Kusi Boateng in favour of Mr. Ablakwa.
Meanwhile, the court has given the parties 10 days within which to make discoveries in the substantive case.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak