Tsikata objects to judge on Supreme Court panel

Accra, July 16, GNA - A panel set up to hear the case of Tsatsu Tsikata, the incarcerated former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), at the Supreme Court will have to be reconstituted.\

This has become necessary because Tsikata has objected to one of the members on the panel of five. Tsikata who raised the objection said he wanted Mr Justice Stephen Allan Brobbey to excuse himself from the panel in the light of being chairman of the Committee set up to investigate an allegation concerning Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban, the trial judge in another case.


Mr. Justice Brobbey was tasked by the Chief Justice Mrs Georgina T. Wood to chair a committee to investigate a matter in which Mrs Justice Abban was alleged to have telephoned Mr S.T. Farkye, now retired, before handing down his sentence on Daniel Abodakpi, Member of Parliament for Keta and a former Minister of Trade and Industry.


The committee under Mr Justice Brobbey found that the allegation against Mrs Abban was untrue.


When Tsikata was asked why he did not raise the objection the last time the case


was called, he said he did not know the panel until they took their various seats. Tsikata, who is serving a five-year jail term for wilfully causing financial loss to


the state, therefore prayed the Supreme Court to take the matter up to the Chief

Justice. Mr Brobbey, in response said: "Mr Tsikata, you don't need to belabour your


point. Your objection is accepted and I volunteer to opt out." Ms Justice Sophia Akuffo, who presided, assured Tsikata she would relay his


concern to the Chief Justice and adjourned the matter sine die. Other members on the panel are Mr Julius Ansah, Ms Justice Rose C. Owusu


and Mr Jones Victor Dotse. Tsikata has gone to the Supreme Court to quash the decision of Mrs Abban's


judgment and her conduct towards him on June 18, this year when judgment was


delivered.