Election Petition: This is not a case in the public, the Supreme Court is focused – Maurice Ampaw

A private legal practitioner, Maurice Ampaw, has chided persons inferring that the judges of the Supreme Court hearing the ongoing 2020 Election Petition case brought to it by former president, John Dramani Mahama, are not being fair to the petitioners.

He said that while there is growing public opinion on the matter, and very recently in favor of the petitioner, it does not negate the fact that the case is not a public opinion one.

Top trends on Ghana’s social media in the last 24 hours have had a #JMDeservesNoApology campaign running, quickly replacing an earlier contrasting one #JMDeservesNoApology.

The new campaign shows people expressing their disappointment in the court process, calling for a fair hearing to be given to the petitioners. So far, none of the seven applications filed by the petitioner have been accepted by the court.

But, contrary to assertions that the justices of the Supreme Court have so far not dealt with the petitioners fairly, Maurice Ampaw believes that discussing the case in the media will do no difference because the judges are focused.

“The public opinion doesn’t matter. What the public thinks, we don’t care about it because that is not the law. The public is not the law. The case was not filed in the court of public opinion; the case was not filed in the media – nobody had a copy of the petition. The case was filed in a court of competent jurisdiction so there are rules and regulations on how the case will be ruled and managed and that is exactly what the Supreme Court is doing; they are focused,” he told GhanaWeb in a telephone interview.