Tsatsu’s hour-long English submission couldn’t help petitioners – Oppong Nkrumah

Information Minister-designate, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has stated that the hour long submission by lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata was not enough to help an application by the petitioner in the ongoing poll petition before the Supreme Court.

Nkrumah, who is also a spokesperson for the second respondent in the case, stressed that the court’s dismissal of an application to inspect original copies of documents in possession of the first respondent was anticipated.

According to him, the petitioner had failed to make a case with the application and that all the documents they wanted to inspect were on the internet and in the possession of the petitioner and his witnesses.

“They have not raised issues of authenticity even, so therefore it is not the one hour submissions and English that will invoke the court to exercise its discretion in this matter,” he told journalists after the court adjourned sitting today.

In dismissing the application on Wednesday, February 3, Chief Justice Anin Yeboah said while delivering the ruling of the panel: “the proceedings so far show that the petitioner has copies of the documents which are the subject of this application. We are of the view that no proper case has been before us to warrant the exercise of our discretion in favour of the applicant.

“Order 29 of CI 47 which is the basis of this application should not be read in isolation, it should be read in conjunction with Rule 11 of the said Order,” he stressed. The Chief Justice has adjourned the case to February 5, 2021. It means the public hearing takes a day’s break.