Prez Mahama Rewards Judge

President John Mahama has rewarded a highly diligently and upright female judge, whose work saved the country some GH¢14 million, with a promotion to the Court of Appeal, for just few years at the High Court.

The judge, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, of the Commercial Division of the High Court, was among the seven people including the wife of a Supreme Court judge, Justice Anim Yeboah, sworn-in last Monday, at a ceremony inside the Castle-Osu.

Meanwhile, there are claims that the President dropped a former Director of the Ghana School of Law, George Sarpong, whose name was on the list of people submitted to him to be sworn-in.

Justice Torkornoo’s vigilance and diligence, prevented African Automobile Ltd in collusion with some state attorneys from illegally pocketing a whopping GH¢14 million under the guise of having a contract with the government.

The judge’s stance that the company did not have a binding contract with the government, was later supported unanimously by the both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

African Automobile Ltd (AAL) had in January 1997, entered into vehicle sales and service agreement, with the government but this was denied by the state in its Statement of Defence filed on July 10, 2008.

But before then, AAL had secured a default judgment which the Attorney-General succeeded in setting aside in 2008.

AAL had sought to recover “the sum of GH¢14,174,693.12 being outstanding sums owed Plaintiff as at 31st January 2008” and interest on the sums from date of judgment until date of final payment.

However, in her judgment, Justice Torkornoo held that the AAL failed to prove the terms of any credible agreement with the Ministry of Information to warrant the payment of the money to it.

Interestingly, before the judge delivered this judgment, the representative of the Attorney-General (AG) rose and told the court that the state had no objections to AAL being awarded the GH¢14 million Ghana.

Declining the request, the judge stated that “My understanding of my role as a judge is that I am required to give judgment on the evidence laid before me and not as directed by the parties. I have a duty to implement the ethic of competence, which requires adjudication based on evaluation of evidence. Instead of entering judgment as submitted by the State, I have chosen to examine the evidence and give my judgment based on the evidence.”

The basis of the judge’s decision was that claims by AAL that it had a valid binding agreement with the State on the basis of which it calculated its interests were baseless.

AAL had written to the Ministry of Information detailing how it would calculate interest accruing from its after sales services to the State, noting that “Kindly confirm your acceptance of the above by signing, dating and stamping the copy of this letter attached hereto as your facility is being withheld till receipt of your confirmation.”

The Ministry did not return letter as requested, but the company claimed it had a binding agreement with the State.

The court said, “a cursory look at exhibit A shows that it is a letter communicating a unilateral decision on how bills to customers would be calculated and requesting that acceptance of the terms should be indicated by signing, dating and stamping a copy of the same (this) letter attached.

“No such copy of the same letter signed, dated and stamped was presented showing acceptance of the terms urged on me as indicating a contract.”

The judge said a document submitted by the plaintiff as evidence of acceptance was suspect. “It is a short note saying ‘we confirm our acceptance of the terms of the above credit facility as outlined therein’. Is it a response to exhibit A?

There is no date on exhibit B. It could easily be a response to a different document because the clearly outlined response required by exhibit A to make it a contract is a signing of the same letter that exhibit A is.”

On the basis of this finding, the judge awarded a lesser amount in disregard of the State’s representative.

The learned trial judge “did, however, find that the defendant had used the plaintiff’s services between January 1994 and November 1998 and incurred a bill of 19,406,371 cedis. Some payments had been made, leaving a balance of 15,636,482.00 cedis as at 15th April 1999. Since there was no evidence of payment of that debt, she ordered defendant to pay the outstanding debt of 1,563.64 Ghana cedis with interest on it at the prevailing commercial banking interest rate from April 1999 to date of final payment.”

Unhappy with the ruling, AAL appealed to the Appeals Court but the appellate body dismissed the appeal, upholding the decision of the High Court.

Determined to claim the money, the car dealer went up to the Supreme Court but the decision of the lower courts was affirmed.

The Supreme Court which delivered a judgment on this matter on June 6, 2012, observed that “Apart from this assertion (a state attorney expressing a willingness to submit judgment) in the judgment of the learned trial judge, however, we have not found any record in the Record of Appeal of this attempt by the State to submit to judgment. Either the record is incomplete or the learned trial judge neglected to make a record of that incident.”

Justice Torkornoo, was sworn-in with justices Mrs. Anim Yeboah, Mrs. Margaret Welbourne, Mrs. Barbara F. Ackah-Yensu, Justice Cecilia Hanzzy Sowah, Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu and Mr. Saeed Kwaku Gyan.

Among the notable cases before Justice Torkornoo, were the STX boardroom wrangling, National Lottery Authority’s case with Fidelity Bank and Electroland, the sale of 70 per cent state of Ghana’s interests to Vodafone.