Judge seizes journalists’ phones

Afua Sackey, the judge who presides over the Accra District Magistrate Court hearing the committal proceedings of the Director of Obengfo Hospital yesterday ordered her Court Warrant Officer (CWO) to seize the phones of all journalists covering the proceedings.

According to the Magistrate, journalists do not have any right to cover the proceedings in her courtroom.

She previously expressed reservations about the presence of journalists in her court and ordered the seizure of their phones without provocation.

Ms. Sackey has always been hostile to journalists covering the case involving the director of Obengfo Hospital.

At the last proceedings, she ordered the journalists to report to the court’s registrar for clearance before she would allow them to sit in her court.

Her order sounded odd to the journalists who have been covering court proceedings over the years.

During proceedings yesterday, the journalists, out of courtesy, prompted the CWO of their presence in the court and he quickly informed the magistrate.

He immediately rushed back and asked all the journalists to surrender their phones and the journalists, who did not know what prompted the seizure, calmly handed over the devices.

The CWO sent all the phones to the judge who kept them throughout the proceedings.

The temper of the journalists heightened when the judge decided to release the phones to them after the accused persons had left the court premises.

This incensed the journalists who expressed their disgust at the decision of the judge, saying her decision and subsequent orders were completely alien to courts, particularly the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the journalists have petitioned the Dean of the Judicial Press Corps to petition the Chief Justice over the behaviour of the judge, who they claimed continuously frustrates journalists in her court.