The Accra High Court has explained why it rejected a request by lawyers for Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Boasiako, to delay judgment in the Samreboi illegal mining case.

The lawyers had asked the court to stop the case temporarily and refer some legal questions to the Supreme Court for constitutional interpretation.

Azar breaks down Wontumi's convictions and 20-year jail sentence

They argued that Sections 14(1) and 99(2)(b) of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703), which were used in charging Wontumi and another accused person, needed to be examined by the Supreme Court to determine whether they were in line with the 1992 Constitution.

However, Justice Audrey Kocuvie Tay, who presided over the case, disagreed with the request.

The judge ruled that the fact that a party raises a constitutional issue does not automatically mean a trial court must stop proceedings and send the matter to the Supreme Court.

She explained that courts must first determine whether there is a serious constitutional question that requires the attention of the Supreme Court before making such a referral.

"Before proceeding to consider the issues in the substantive case, this Court ought to address the constitutional question raised by counsel for the 1st and 3rd accused persons... This Court must, before all else, determine whether it is bound to accede to that prayer. It is not," Justice Tay ruled.

Justice Tay said past decisions by the Supreme Court had already established that trial courts are not required to refer every constitutional argument brought before them.

She explained that a simple claim by a party that a constitutional issue exists is not enough to halt a case.

"The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on Article 130 is settled and of long standing. Thus, a trial court is not obliged, upon the mere say-so of a party that a question of constitutional interpretation arises, to down its tools and refer the matter upstairs," she stated.

The judge also said the Constitution clearly requires criminal offences and their punishments to be written in law, and the laws used in the case met that requirement.

She explained that the law clearly states that a person can only be convicted of a crime if the offence and its punishment are already provided in written legislation.

"Article 19(11) is not, on its own terms, a difficult provision. It provides that 'no person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless the offence is defined and the penalty for it is prescribed in a written law.' Both limbs of that command, definition and prescription, are satisfied on the face of the statute here in question," she noted.

Justice Tay further stated that the concerns raised by Wontumi’s lawyers were not about what the Constitution means, but rather about whether Parliament should have made the mining law differently.

She said disagreements with a law passed by Parliament do not automatically become constitutional issues.

"Whatever quarrel counsel for the 1st and 3rd accused persons may have with the breadth or the wisdom of that legislative choice is not a quarrel about whether the words of the Constitution bear one meaning or another; it is, at bottom, a submission that Parliament ought to have legislated differently," she stated.

The judge therefore concluded that there was no strong constitutional issue that required the Supreme Court’s intervention.

She dismissed the application and ordered that the court would proceed with delivering judgment in the case.

"Accordingly, this Court finds that no genuine or real question of interpretation of Article 19(11) of the Constitution, 1992, from the case, the evidence and the submissions before it. The prayer of counsel for the 1st and 3rd accused persons for a stay of proceedings and a reference to the Supreme Court under Article 130(2) is therefore refused. This Court will now proceed to deliver its judgment on the merits," Justice Tay ruled.

FULL TEXT: Read the full court ruling that sentenced Wontumi to 20 years

After rejecting the application, the court delivered its judgment and found Wontumi guilty on all six charges in the Samreboi illegal mining case.

He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment with hard labour on two counts, with the sentences to run concurrently, while fines were imposed on the other counts.



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