You are here: HomeNews2012 09 10Article 250025

Politics of Monday, 10 September 2012

Source: The Herald

NPP Agenda Uncovered!

...They infiltrate Supreme Court with AFAG,

Family & political ties to crush 45 New Constituencies on Wednesday.


For the first time in the history, some judges of the Supreme Court will on Wednesday have their mandatory legal vacations disturbed by Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, to consider a demand to block parliament from passing the controversial Constitutional Instrument (CI) to increase parliamentary seats from 230 to 275.

The case filed by a member of the pro New Patriotic Party group, Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), Mr. Ransford France, who is coming under the cloak of a businessman with lawyer from Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co. The law firm of the NPP flag-bearer at Adabraka in Accra.

What is interesting is that the hearing of the case will be done a few days after the judicial services publicly declared that it is impossible to empanel Justices of the Supreme Court during the legal vacation to hear a suit challenging the creation of 45 new constituencies.

This the judicial service explained, in the widely circulating daily graphic dated Tuesday, August 28, 2012, was because almost all the judges were out of the jurisdiction on legal vacation while the rest were scheduled to leave the jurisdiction by the first week of September.

The judges, who started the legal vacation in August, were to return to work in October.

The more intriguing beat about Mr. France’s case, filed on his behalf by another AFAG member, Lawyer Godfred Yeboah Dame of Akufo- Addo’s law chambers, is that it also brings back memories of the famous January 2009 case in which the chief justice instructed a judge to sit on a case in which the NPP sought to torpedo the declaration of the 2008 presidential results.

In the January 2009 case, which brought about the famous ‘Atta Akyea tape’, Akufo- Addo’ cousin, Samuel Atta Akyea and Irene Naa Torshie Addo, both of whom used to work in the law chambers of the NPP flag-bearer, tried to stop the Electoral Commission (EC) form declaring the 2008 presidential results but failed because according to Atta Akyea, they did not have a favorable judge.

Before the recall of the Supreme Court judges, ex- President John Kufuor, who had appointed about 90% of the judges, including chief justice wood, mounted an NPP political campaign platform at Mantse Agbonaa, at James Tow- Accra, to hit hard at the EC for asking Parliament to pass the 45 additional seats into law, saying it’s a recipe for electoral violence.

Aside from Mr. Kufuor’s position, the NPP Minority Members of Parliament (MP’s) also held a press conference to accuse their colleagues on the majority of collusion with the EC to have the 45 seats as part of the coming elections.

Kufuor’s comment, the unwavering position of the minority and other radio pronouncements, have heightened interest in the creation of 45 new seats as well as tension in the country, and on Wednesday, the country’s attention will be on the Supreme Court judges’s as to which direction they will tilt “the scale of justice”.

Lawyer Atta Akyea, who is married to the CJ’s biological sister, was captured on the tape saying that during the December 2008 elections, when he (Atta Akyea) filed an Ex-Parte motion to stop the EC from declaring the results, the CJ, after convening the court on New Year’s Day, a national holiday, allegedly coached him about how to go about the case.

The secret recording reveals that, when the case was put before one Justice Asante, the MP, fearing the judge was pro-NDC, approached the CJ, who coached him on how to get the docket snatched from Judge Asante, with claims that he once worked with CASHPRO, a company that dealt in cocoa and which had NDC stalwarts, including Ato Ahwoi, as owners.

The tape captured the NPP MP for Abuakwa South as saying “when I was going, they said the CJ said I should raise the issue of bias, (against the judge). All that she (CJ) would have told the young man (the Judge) is that they say you have worked with CASPRO and CASHPRO is NDC, and I don't want you to be embarrassed.”

Mr. Atta Akyea, continued in the secret recordings that “when I was about to go to court, they said that my wife wants to talk to me, and she said they say I should move the motion, it will be alright.”

Other pro- NPP lawyers who ere captured on the secret recording were also heard saying that “(Justice) Asante has no Charisma; If it was Ofori Atta, he would have granted the Ex-Parte. We put the exparte before a wrong judge, we thought he was actually for us; listening to the decision and ruling, he is not” with us.

“You may be surprise that he may have hinted those people,” referring to Tony Lithur, Fui Tsikata, Bram Larbi and Samuel Cudjoe (a.k.a. Tom sawyer) among other lawyers, who had rushed to court as 'Friends of the court', to scuttle the diabolic plan to halt the Tain election, which would obviously have led to a constitutional crisis during the 2008 elections.

Meanwhile reports are that Rebecca Akufo-Addo, wife of Nana Akufo-Addo is also a cousin of the chief justice.