[ad_1]
General news for Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Source: GNA
2021-01-27
The Legal Team of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Frank Davis, a member of President Akufo-Addo’s legal team in the Petition for the 2020 Presidential Election, says that the Supreme Court is a “busy place” and not a “forum for staged, rehearsed, and choreographed theater performances or a place for melodrama”.
He said the Apex Court was a “place where serious legal business was conducted” and should be taken as such. Mr. Davis, who was reacting to petitioners’ alleged attempts to delay proceedings on Tuesday, said the court “is not a place for flowery literature, long prose and rather boring English without any legal merit.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered for the second time that the petitioner in his capacity as former president, John Mahama, present his testimonial statements before the close of Wednesday, January 27, 2021.
The seven-member panel said that failure to submit witness statements would force the Court to invoke sanctions from Rule 69 of CI 16, which had been amended by CI 99.
Under Rule 69, the Court has the power to dismiss the petition or impose a punitive cost against the petitioner. Mr. Davis described to Mr. Tony Luther, a member of the petitioners’ legal team, the comment that the request before the Court had been predetermined, as “offensive” and “unfortunate” and said, as legal professionals who frequented the courts, “We should exercise a little restraint in the choice of our language.”
He said that the Tribunal did not take it kindly, but that the Tribunal had been kind and very lenient towards the petitioner because he had been given another opportunity to rectify the error.
“I want to warn my colleagues on the other side that if it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it,” he said.
Mr. Davis said that no attorney had the absolute right to say that any application filed was within their jurisdiction, stating that this was the reason the law existed and that “you don’t come to court with a preconceived notion of what that you think you have submitted. ”
He said that the Court in all important moments was governed by rules and the Court applied the set of rules to the letter.
Mr. Davies said that the petitioner’s lawyer had no right to go to court with the “unnecessary and unnecessary” request filed, saying that “if you disobey the court’s orders, there are consequences.”
The Court adjourned the matter until Thursday, January 28, 2021.
