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Election Petition 2020: How Tsatsu Tsikata succeeded in the ruling against John Mahama - An unlearned opinion?

Tsatsu Tsikata 2021 Lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata, affiliate and legal counsel to the National Democratic Congress

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 Source: Abdulai Yakubu

A good lawyer is not necessarily the one who relies on the statute and authorities to win legal arguments in Court. A distinguished lawyer knows the various legal provisions and authority, but choose to challenge those authorities and the statute so as to deepen the frontiers of the justice system.

If he wins, he creates another authority and the law is widened. If he loses, he would have succeeded in entrenching the existing clear legal provisions and adding to the strength of the existing authorities.

Winning a good case does not really make a lawyer exceptional. The case was already good and you won it. Much credit to the case itself than you. It is like Presec Legon admitting only BECE Candidates with single aggregates and teaching them to have distinctions in their WASSCE after three years of SHS. It doesn't mean their teachers are exceptional.

If Presec Legon can admit students from very deprived JHS with weak foundation and weak aggregates, then use 3 years to transform them to pass WASSCE with distinctions, that will be an evidence of how exceptional their teachers and the school are.

The point I am making is that Tsatsu Tsikata knows the law. He knows that he has a slim probability of winning in most of the instances that rulings go against him, but he still tries to introduce unique perspectives and wisdom to issues at hand. It is not all the time that you need to rely on clear provisions or authorities to win an argument. You can win an argument by introducing a unique and peculiar perspective to an issue using deep wisdom. It leads to creation of another precedence.

Once upon a time, there was a law on offences that were not bailable - NONBAILABLE OFFENCES. It took Lawyer Martin Kpebu to have that law reversed and authority was created. Today, all offences are bailable. Credit Martin Kpebu.

Once upon a time, police will arrest you on Friday and start counting the 48 hours only on weekdays. It means that you will spend the entire weekend behind bars. It took Martin Kpebu to change that practice by getting the apex Court to declare that in reckoning the 48 hours, weekends should be added. They further ordered that Courts could sit on Weekends for hearing criminal cases for the purposes of respecting the rights of suspects to be heard and possibly granted bail.

I don't think Tsatsu Tsikata has been losing in the Supreme Court rulings against him. He is succeeding in solidifying the existing authorities and provisions, and just maybe, the future will judge him kindly and as a victor.

As for the political over hype and denigration of his person, I leave it to the political foot soldiers with worthless weapons.

Salaam. Have a lovely weekend.

Lest I forget, he was outsmarted by the surprised closure of respective cases of the Respondents.

Columnist: Abdulai Yakubu
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