Be bold and “just” – Group tells SC Judges

Pressure group, Let My Vote Count Alliance says the nine Justices hearing the election petition case must “muster courage” and be “just” and “fair” in hearing the matter and “stamp” their “authority” if need be.

“We will continue to pray for them that they muster the courage and principles of their office, the wisdom, the patriotism and responsibility to do what is right, just and fair,” the group said at a press conference in Accra on Thursday.

The group says its call has been necessitated by its fear that Ghanaians will be denied justice in the matter due to “the new strategy chosen by the respondents…to use technicalities to deny the people of Ghana justice”.

It explained that: “This strategy is to reduce this important election petition to be determined not by the substance of the thousands of evidence which the petitioners-Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey - have brought for adjudication, but the form by which those exhibits of evidence were filed and/or served on the respondents”.

One of the group’s Spokespersons, David Asante told Journalists that: “It seems to millions of increasingly frustrated Ghanaians that the whole essence of this case about our democracy, our votes, our governance, is being forced down to how the evidence was packaged and served rather than what is contained in the evidence”.

He said: “Our message to the court is simple: GHANAIANS ARE WATCHING”.

The group added that: “The people would not allow the justice that they seek, to be denied through the frivolous and vexatious instruments of technicalities like exhibit numbers, whether they begin with four zeros or no zeros at all; whether the exhibit number takes us to a polling station in Techiman or Kpandai”.

“This case is about what happened at polling stations across the country on December 7 and 8, 2012 and nothing less”.

It said: “That is why the people are saying that the justices must therefore stamp their authority and stop this puppetry of technicalities orchestrated through the joint enterprise of lawyers for John Mahama and the NDC, using the lawyer for the Commission as the convenient, ever-willing instrument of such blatant, unpatriotic evil. People are beginning to see the three masters of technicalities as the Axis of Evil Against Justice”!

Mr Asante said the group is puzzled as to “why the judges cannot apply the rules and powers that they have to get respondents to let the court know exactly what exhibits they have or don't have. This is causing undue delay and the building of frustration among the people as respondents seemingly put all their eggs of victory into the basket of technicalities”.

He noted that: “We are here today to call for calm. To ask the people to remain being patient. We will urge the people to remain calm and continue to put their faith in the competence of the petitioners' legal team and in the wisdom of the nine justices. We do not expect these experienced men and women, on whose shoulders the fate and destiny of our democracy now sit, to fail us”.

The Alliance however warned that the resort to such technicalities is what plunged Kenya into conflict after that country’s 2007 election and, therefore, warned that Ghana risked suffering similar fate if the emerging trend continued.

“Ghanaians should not think we are immune to this kind of thing. The ethnic configurations of Kenyan politics are, in shape and form, equally alive in Ghana, which like Kenya, took the multi-party route in 1992,” the Alliance noted.

It wondered why the respondents are making a fuss about the quantity of election result slips (pink sheets) tendered in evidence rather than dealing with the substance of the matter.

“Ghanaians are simply not prepared to see the interest of substantive justice giving way to technicalities. They would understand, for instance, if after the KPMG count of exhibits, it comes out that certain pink sheets were not served per the court order, so petitioners can no longer rely on them. They would understand if the court found that indeed respondents were not served with certain exhibits and must be served and Dr. Bawumia further cross-examined on them,” the group said.

“But what the people would NEVER accept is for evidence before the court to be ignored because they were not properly labelled or categorized,” it warned.

“At the crux of the difficulty is an issue of mislabelling and not a lack of evidence. To allow such straight forward, curable technical errors to deny the people justice would amount to a coup d'etat against the Constitution of the Republic. And, Article 3 of the Constitution gives citizens the authority to use every means possible to resist any attempt to overthrow the Constitution”.