Supreme Court adjourns hearing to Monday

The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned hearing on the ongoing election dispute case to Monday, April 29, 2013.

The adjournment followed a request by James Quarshie-Idun, counsel for the Electoral Commission (EC) for a postponement of proceedings, citing fatigue as his reason.

Justice William Atuguba, Presiding Judge, granted Mr QuarshieIdun’s request and announced the adjournment of proceedings to 0900 hours on Monday, April 29, 2013.

Before then, Mr Quarshie Idun had been taking Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, second petitioner in the case through cross examination since morning.

At some point, Mr Quarshie-Idun produced a pink sheet of the polling station where Dr Bawumia voted during the December polls and asked if witness had brought along his voter ID card.

Dr Bawumia replied in the negative, saying that he did not think bringing it to the court was necessary.

Mr Quarshie-Idun went on to tender in evidence the pink sheets of Dr Bawumia's polling station, but Counsel for the petitioners, Mr Philip Addison objected to the tendering of the document as evidence, arguing that the second respondent had not laid proper grounds for tendering the document.

He said the second respondent had not attached a single document to their affidavit when they had the opportunity to do so, and that springing those documents on witness in the Court amounted to what he referred to as “ambush litigation” which the petitioners’ legal team would continue to object to.

The court upheld the objection.

Mr Addison raised further objections to a number of questions Mr Quarshie-Idun put to Dr Bawumia on similar grounds, some of which the court over-ruled and demanded witness to go ahead and answer them.

Hearing continues on Monday.