By unanimous decision, the Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an application by former President John Mahama, seeking the Electoral Commission (EC) to answer certain questions of fact in the 2020 election petition.
The petitioner couched the questions in the nature of interrogatories which by law is a procedure that helps set out, narrow down or determine the issues for trial of a case.
In moving the motion for leave of the court to elicit answers from the EC, lead counsel for President Mahama, Mr Tsatsu Tsikata noted that the questions were relevant and very much at the heart of the petition.
Some of the questions the petitioner sought answers for relates to the practice in previous presidential elections involving collated figures, whether the practice are followed in terms of transmission of figures from regional to the EC headquarters, when the EC got to know there were errors with the declared figures, how the Chairperson of the EC got to know the errors, and whether the National Communications Authority (NCA) facilitated the transmission of results to the EC headquarters.
But the seven-member panel presided over by the Chief Justice, Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah held that although the basis for the application was to assist the court to narrow the issues for trial, they must be relevant to the case.
It is the considered view of the court that the issue of relevance had not been established by the petitioner in the application.
The Chief Justice who read the short ruling reiterated that interrogatories were discretionary at common law, thus, the court has the power to grant the application or otherwise.
Both counsel for the EC and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mr Justin Amenuvor and Mr Akoto Ampaw opposed the application arguing that the petitioner was seeking to railroad the trial by seeking information not pleaded “through the backdoor.”
For instance, Mr Amenuvor contended that the information being sought by Mr Tsikata was within the domain of the petitioner.
Mr Ampaw insisted that interrogatories must be relevant to the matter in contention and urged the court to dismiss the application.
Meanwhile, the court admonished Mr Tsikata for allegedly seeking to attack the person of Mrs Jean Adukwei Mensa, the Chairperson of the EC by constantly mentioning her name instead of the institution.
But Mr Tsikata told the court that his reference to Mrs Mensa was not actuated by malice but grounded on the constitutional provision which makes Mrs Mensa the returning officer of the EC.
The case has been adjourned to today for the parties to file issues for trial by 9am.
Mr Mahama is challenging the declaration of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 election.
Last week Thursday, the court granted a motion to enable Mr Mahama, the petitioner to correct an error in his petition.
The amendment process had since been filed at the Registry of the Supreme Court.
