Justice Atuguba Has Lost Control Of The Courtroom

The Supreme Court Judges sitting on the election petition case has low tolerance for criticism especially when it comes to their personal reputation. Even the use of the word 'timid' to describe the decision taken by their colleagues in the Mornah's case which they immediately acceded to by not holding sittings on public holidays met their wrath and as such, one has to be careful when commenting on their performance so far. It does not escape anybody watching the proceedings in court that, whangdoodle Tsatsu Tsikata has been allowed to take over the court by engaging in logomachies without being cautioned.The fact is that I can candidly and fearlessly attest to the fact that the Atuguba-led Supreme Court panel hearing the 2012 Akufo-Addo/New Patriotic Party (NPP) petition appears to be unduly allowing Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata to get away with way too much.

Justice Atuguba has ceded the authority of the court to Tsatsu Tsikata to engage in rigmarole and insults without the court coming down heavily on him. It is unheard of in court room proceedings for a lawyer to tell another lawyer to shut up without observing the decorum of the court and any such behaviour in USA courtroom or for that matter any courtroom room apart from this court would have brought sanctions and a dress down of the offending lawyer, in this case, Tsatsu but instead of Justice Atuguba stopping proceedings and warning Tsatsu to respect the court instead waved him on despite Mr Addison demanding Tsatsu to withdraw his statement. The least the Judges could have done was to have prevailed upon Tsatsu to withdraw his statement but they did nothing.The way Atuguba has been allowing Tsatsu leeway to abuse lawyers including the Judges without the Presiding President of the Judges telling him to measure his words, he must as well go and sit with the Ndc Defense team. He is losing control of the court to Tsiakata and if he is not aware, it is becoming very clear when he continuously waves on Tsatsu Tsikata to continue without asking him to retract his insulting words.

In one of such exchanges in court, this is what happened;

"Mr. Addison: My lords, I don’t know why counsel can’t ask questions without using words like honesty etc. It is quite surprising coming from him talking about honesty. These kinds of words that he has been using, playing to the gallery. We have said that we do not want to reply in kind, he should choose his words carefully; there was no need at all to address the witness as being dishonest. Coming from him, it’s quite rich…

Justice Atuguba: Let us try to be impersonal and professional in this matter and civil too. The question he is putting has nothing to do with his personal…he is not the witness, so his particular…is not an issue…(Addison intervenes again)

Mr. Addison: My lords, I have raised several times, the issue of words that counsel for Third respondent has been using in this court, there’s been no pronouncement from the court and he keeps doing it. I’m saying that we are very much capable of throwing those words at him… Justice Atuguba was forced to wade in to calm tempers, saying; “the mud-slinging was evened. So now, there should be no generation of it the personal attacks whether manually or electronically."

It is quite astonishing a Justice chairing a panel can use the words "it is even now". This is not a soccer match where we keep scores. The court needs to take control of the court back from Tsatsu because he has hijacked the courtroom and Judge Atuguba seems spellbound by Tsatsu's disjointed incoherent questions to Dr Bawumiah. Why is the Justices caving in to the demands of Tsatsu to count the pink sheet now when the Justices refused an earlier demand by Lithur? Now Tsatsu has threatened he cannot proceed with his cross examination unless the do a physical count not only of the pink sheets but all the exhibits.

Is the court going to cave in and adjourne the hearing until the pink sheets and all the other exhibits are counted? Why will the Respondents proceed with cross examination if they were indeed not sure of the number of exhibits they had received and why they had waited all this while and brought it up only when it was obvious they were bringing an end to their cross examination.This is just the NDC delay tactics they have been trying to use to deny the public from knowing the truth about what happened during the 2012 election.

Justice Sarpong

(CARDINAL of TRUTH)