Decide on your conscience and your judicial oath -Tsikata to SC judges

Lead counsel of the petitioner in the ongoing election petition hearing, lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata has asked the panel hearing the application for review on the ruling on the reopening of the case to use their conscience and judicial oath in arriving at a ruling.

“May each of your lordships decide in accordance with your conscience and your judicial oath,” when he made a case why his application should be upheld.

The seven justices of the apex court of Ghana unanimously dismissed the application of the petitioner, for the case to be re-opened in order to subpoena the Chair of the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC), the First Respondent, to testify in court as a “hostile witness”.

Dissatisfied by the ruling, lawyers for the petitioner filed an application for review.

Mr Tsikata questioned the basis of the ruling, indicating that the justices themselves were surprised when the First Respondent closed its case without calling its witness, Jean Adukwei Mensa, to testify.

He said the judges failed to aver their minds to the statutes of the court and ruled in contrast to the law.

He was quizzed if he had a list containing all the reasons that informed the ruling of the court and in his response, he said he was not a diviner to know what else the judges were thinking apart from what you have put on paper.

“I am not in the minds of the panel,” he stressed.

He further argued that for Mrs Mensa to have filed a witness statement meant that she was committed to mounting the witness box.

“We have no reason to say she was not telling the truth,” he said.

Hr quoted the Holy Bible asking the judges to be guided by the nine justices reviewing the case, quoting Hosea 8:7.

It states: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”

Counsels for the 1st and 2nd respondents, Justin Amenuvor and Akoto Ampaw, respectively, asked the Court to set aside the review application since it does not merit its prayer.

According to them, the arguments were a rehash of arguments already ruled on by the court.