Election Petition: Fellow Justice fights Atuguba over Bawumia

The President of the nine-member Bench of the Supreme Court, Justice William Atuguba, was heard disagreeing with another member of the Bench on Wednesday May 15, 2013 during the election petition hearing.

The open Court disagreement between Justice Atuguba and the female Justice was in relation to an answer given by the key witness in the case, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, concerning a letter written by his party’s national Chairman Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, to the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, EC, complaining of fraud in the 2012 elections.

Mr. Tsikata was seeking to use Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey’s letter to prove the governing National Democratic Congress’s pleadings of “bad faith” on the part of the Petitioners, regarding their challenge of the 2012 presidential election results.

Mr. Tsikata put it to Dr. Bawumia during Wednesday’s cross examination that his party’s Chairman’s complaint of fraud was at variance with the Petitioners’ claims of irregularities, malpractices and violations.

The NDC Lead Counsel’s reference to Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey’s allegations of fraud was part of the former’s attempt to wring out an explanation from Dr. Bawumia, as to why the three Petitioners, including his party’s Chairman, did not add allegations of fraud to their pleadings, despite Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey’s claims of same in his protest letter to the Second Respondent.

Mr. Tsikata suggested to the Witness that: “In the statement that was attached to the letter, those allegations are not true, are they?”

Dr. Bawumia said: “No I cannot say that”.

He explained that: “On the 8th and 9th, we had so many allegations and complaints across the country. The first petitioner said we can’t really ultimately go by allegations so let’s examine the primary records of the elections, and this is why we put a committee together, which I headed, to examine the records because it's only the records that we can bring to court, and so we cannot just go by allegations, and this is why we brought this to court. After examining the records, we brought the allegations of over-voting, voting without verification, no signature, duplicate serial numbers and so on; that is our case [which] we’ve brought to Court”.

However, the President of the Bench said: “No I don’t think this really addresses [the question]”.

No sooner had Justice Atuguba landed with his remarks on Dr. Bawumia’s answer than a female Bench member interrupted to say: “He has answered it”.

Justice Atuguba then retorted that: “Oh! No, ; no no, it doesn’t”.

The female Justice was then heard in the background protesting by saying: “It does”.

“Oh well, I hold a different view”, retorted Justice Atuguba.

The persistent background protests of the fellow female Justice then compelled Justice Atuguba to blurt out a tantrum in frustration exclaiming that: “Ohhhh! Please you have your way of looking at things”.