Why are you refusing to obey court orders? – Supreme Court judges scold Mahama’s lawyers

Lawyers of John Dramani Mahama in the 2020 election petition appear to have infuriated justices of the Supreme Court who have expressed strong displeasure about their failure to obey the Court’s directive to submit their witness statement.

At its last sitting on January 21, 2021, the court ordered all the parties to file their witness statements to pave way for the hearing of the substantive case.

However, lawyers of John Dramani Mahama filed a stay of proceedings to put brakes on the processes, pending the review of the Court ruling dismissing some 12 interrogatory questions for Jean Mensa, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission.

In court today, Tony Lithur attempted to explain to the Justices why they have not filed their witness statements.

The justification for their position is that the ruling on the interrogatory will impact on the witness statements they will file so they wanted the court to rule on that before they obey the directive.

But the panel, led by Chief Justice Anin Yeboah, will have none of that. TheGhanaReport states that the judges strongly opposed it and drew Tony Lithur’s attention to the fact that instead of obeying the court, the lawyer rather opted to file different motions.

“You know what you are doing here and you indicated that you have five witnesses so why have you not filed your witness statements,” Justice Getrude Torkonoo queried.

Tony Lithur attempted to explain but Justice Yaw Appau interjected “why not file your witness statements and when the review is granted the rules will now permit you to file supplementary witness statement if you have any”.

“Why are you refusing to obey the orders of the court and meanwhile, you want us to hear your application?,” Justice Appau asked.

The Court ordered the lawyers to submit the statements by close of day Wednesday, January 27, 2021.