Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
A contempt of court application initiated by Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng, Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral Secretariat, against Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, yesterday began before an Accra High Court.
The court, presided over by Justice Charles Gyenfi Dankwa, could, however, not proceed because the processes were not properly served on the NDC MP.
Rev. Kusi Boateng is 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 by a court bailiff.
But the court yesterday heard that the processes were not served on the respondent, as he had only come into contact with it on social media.
Justice Dankwa, in his ruling, said the contempt application has to be personally served on the respondent.
He said what counsel for the MP procured either from social media or from counsel for applicant cannot be taken as service of the contempt processes.
“From the records before this court, the respondent has not been served with any contempt procedure and the court has also not made any order for such process,” he said.
The court, therefore, ordered the plaintiff to take “all the necessary legal steps” to serve the MP with the contempt application, while the case was adjourned indefinitely.
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.
On February 3, 2022, a bailiff of the court attempted to serve the interim injunction on Mr. Ablakwa at the premises of Metro TV in Accra, where he had appeared on the ‘Good Morning Ghana’ show.
He was captured in a video, which has gone viral, refusing to be served, and the plaintiff in the contempt application indicates that the MP had claimed that he would not accept service because he was on his way to Parliament.
But the bailiff, who was not satisfied with the MP’s excuse, proceeded to serve Mr. Ablakwa by leaving the court process as close as possible to the MP, because Parliament was on recess, an act the MP did not take kindly to.
Mr. Ablakwa was captured in a video throwing the court proceedings to the floor, and later kicking it twice with his right foot, in a manner which the plaintiff describes as gross disrespect to the court official and the jurisdiction of the court.
Rev. Kusi avers that the “immunities available to Members of Parliament from being served personally with court processes can only be invoked when that Member of Parliament is either on his way to or way from Parliament proceedings or activities; an immunity which the respondent (Mr. Ablakwa) could not have invoked on February 3, 2023, because the Parliament of Ghana was on recess at that time.”
He adds that the court has the power to commit the MP to prison for his conduct, to protect the whole administration of justice and serve as deterrent to others. The case is scheduled for February 21, 2023.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak