Jean Mensa was prevented from testifying at the 2020 election petition - Edudzi alleges

A member of the National Democratic Congress legal team, Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo, has alleged that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, was prepared to testify at the 2020 Elections Petition but was prevented from doing so by some powerful people.

According to Edudzi Tameklo, Jean Mensa was prevented from testifying not only to protect her but because her testimony would have a great impact on the petition.

In a Good Morning Ghana interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Edudzi alleged that the EC boss was going to present figures that were completely different from the ones she declared.

"Jean Mensah had come to court, during the election petition, she sat by me and her lawyers had already given her calculators to start working on it. There was only one reason why they stopped her from testifying. The presidential declaration form that she brought to court did reflect what happened – the Form 13.

“You remember there was a day while my learned senior colleague, Akoto Ampaw, was cross-examining General Mosquito. One of the NPP senior lawyers whispered to him, ‘confront him with the Electoral Commission figures’, he did know that the microphone was still on. He (Akoto Ampaw) said ‘no I will not do it". We know why (he did not want to do that).

“She (Jean Mensa) had come to court prepared to face cross-examination. Something happened at the last minute. So, I am saying that when all of these things happen it sends a certain message out there,” he said.

The lawyer made these remarks while responding to persons who had criticised former President John Dramani Mahama for comments he made about the Judiciary.

Edudzi said that the comments made by the former president had been made by other stakeholders in the country including the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and even an appointee of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Minister for National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah.

Ex-President Mahama at a forum held for lawyers of the National Democratic Congress on August 28 lamented that the judiciary has a ‘broken image under the current leadership of the Chief Justice.

He said Ghanaians were losing trust in the judiciary owing to some of its unanimous decisions – a situation he explains as dangerous to the country’s democracy.

He stated that it would only take a new Chief Justice to chart a path to regaining public trust in the judiciary.

“There is therefore an urgent need for the Ghanaian judiciary to work to win the trust and confidence of the citizenry and erase the widely held perception of hostility and political bias in legal proceedings at the highest courts of the land.

“Unfortunately, we have no hope that the current leadership of our judiciary can lead such a process of change. We can only hope that a new Chief Justice will lead a process to repair the broken image that our judiciary has acquired over the last few years,” Mahama submitted over the weekend.

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