Election 2020 Petition: Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Kpessa Whyte to testify for John Mahama (28-1-11)

[Music] we'll take you back to the last court sitting we will remind you of the issues outstanding particularly what john dramani mahama is seeking but let me introduce to you our lawyers who help us break the issues down this morning mr martin pebble a very good morning to you thank you very much for making time again today hello mr pebble okay and justice abdullah is also a lawyer good morning to you sir thank you so much again for joining me gentlemen if you can both hear me can i hear you say hello okay hello mr pebble i can't hear you ah i can hear you now good morning to you good morning okay great i hope you're well guys very well thank you nice lawyers have not necessarily talked about cover 19 i hope that it's not affecting your work in the courts it does to the extent that uh a lot of the time we are in there and not some of us are in panic mode because you know each time you hear the statistics then the thought is speech listen i hope it doesn't spread to get to me you know so it kind of gives us anxiety yes yeah so today psychologically we are affected even though physically we've not been infected well i know we will be fine if we continue to abide by the protocols but the grace of god is also sufficient so most importantly but thank you so much for for making time to be with us let's see if justice abdullah can hear me now can you hear me sir okay not quite so let me stay with you mr martin pebble and i want to go back to the last chord sitting uh what surprised you most about that i i was so unexpected they went on recess i mean just minutes into the hearing and it was so surprising and i think what i used to describe the panel was that they was quite upset because they felt that gender manny mohammed's legal team had not respected their orders and they had not filed their witness statement so just going back into the last court system sitting maybe you can give a summary of your thoughts of what happened yeah so probably when it comes to the apparent excuse me anger it's possible it was contrived okay so the justices would have uh made it happen to send a stand warning you know uh to the mr miami's team that they are not happy about what had happened so for me i wouldn't take it as anger proper you know day in day out it happens in the courtrooms sometimes you know lawyers are overwhelmed so we don't go by the court orders and uh the judge who is steals with the case has a lot of other cases and so sometimes there are ways of sending a signal that look i won't count announce this next time round so i think we shouldn't make too much of it but i'm having substantively look what happened that day i'll tell you that i have also learned something very uh substantial from the proceedings that be you see the reason for which mr file the witness statement that you should say because they had filed a state of proceedings a lot of us that understood the law has given them the right not to file if they had filed a state of procedures but look trust me later on through researches it turned out that the supreme court has another decision that's not so popular yet but it's still a decision of the supreme court where they may declare that if you file an application for state of proceedings it doesn't mean the court has already granted you your wishes so if there is anything to be done in the interim you do it whilst you wait for the court to uh decide your application that is to say whether they're caught will grant your stay or not so what i'll say that so it's possible that um maybe the team didn't see that decision because since i saw that decision myself i had a good fight because ellia i'm very confident that look this is one principle which is very clear on the face of the law which is that if you file the state of proceedings don't do any other thing that will undermine your application so in the case of lisa mama because they filed a state of proceedings they shouldn't further their witness statements but it has turned out that there's other security compensation it's called republic versus high court uh commercial division tamale experti kalim experti kalim where glasses in jsc speaking for the court stated that if you file an application for state of proceedings it doesn't mean your wishes have been granted so you can stop or you can refuse to do what the court had asked you to do or you can refuse to participate any further no it doesn't mean so he says go on but then the court will decide in due course so yeah this is a high court case that you're citing isn't it yeah it's a supreme court case but they were talking about a high court but is the same principle okay so let me repeat when you hear the title the republic versus high court commercial division family expertise calling okay so it was in the high court that the judge had made some orders and then somebody applied for steel free cds another place and wasn't taking part blah blah blah blah so when you hear the expertise also and so usually okay so just uh just a brief moment there but i can assure you we'll have mr martin people back uh to finish this but i see you justice abdullah there you are good morning good morning okay great i believe yes i am and yourself um i am still battling and pulled okay i'll come to you malaria oh well my apologies uh mr pebble we lost you because the feed had frozen just a little bit but i'll give you the opportunity so you can end you are still explaining this case to us yes okay so i'm saying that this of the case is that if you file an application for state of proceedings that doesn't mean automatically your state has been granted from the moment you filed it that used to be the dominant thought at the back you see lawyers as we practice day in day out it should be accepted that as soon as you file your state of proceedings don't do anything that will show that thank you yourself you don't really have faith in what you have put before the court so as soon as you file your state you would stop being caught on this it's not like you've stopped assad but for fear that if you continue um obeying the verity you are protesting against then it should mean it will mean that this self-defeat you don't even have faith in what you find you are protesting and at the same time [Music] that was seen as a sign of inconsistency the practice was that if you finally still approach and proceed with don't obey so to speak for lack of a better way he looks at the way to be too strong maybe don't adhere to the others you are supposed to adhere to okay but saying that that there is a certain decision we see that whole practice it's not the law um please proceed as if you haven't even found it go ahead and do what the guy is asking you to do until the application that you have put before the court either before the same high court or if it is the supreme court until the court has had your application for staying off proceedings yeah so i should think that is why the justices said no no no no um you go back and file the document and i'm happy i'm saying that me also talking to you it's not that i like the principle so it's humbling so you see right now we keep saying that we are always learning we have so many rules so if you are not careful at one point the decisions are so many they don't get reported in the form of law reports that we buy and the very day the supreme court makes a decision so let's say they call this a decision today lawyer that no go back and file the documents it's blessed i at least i should think on this decision that they have previously given great great okay mr pebble well thank you it's good to know that even lawyers very experienced lawyers are still learning something new from the processes and caught with the election petition um justice we spoke on that day in fact you were with me before the the hearing started and indeed when they went on recess and you are taking me through the punishments uh the regime what could happen to them uh once and and then of course the panel came back and also referred to some say it was a threats they could have their entire case dismissed uh you know there could be costs or they could have some of the processes being set aside what do you make of the final outcome the nanada danko kofwado's legal team uh has described it as lenient so the court was very lenient to mr john dramani indeed muhammad um you were right um that way we predicted all the possible outcomes and we laid them out clearly and the supreme court came out confirming almost everything that we had discussed on on your station and um abducted one of it um and indeed give the threat of a possible striking out of the suit should they feel to um exercise sorry abide by the orders of the supreme court by filing the appropriate processes that had been ordered to file um i wouldn't say that the supreme court was too lenient considering the fact that this is novell first of all is the first in this time that we are being we are confronted with this kind of challenge and so and then also um the decision not to file also on the basis of an application pending application which sought to stay proceeded and taking it from that angle i saw i would say that it's not as though the mohammed team was too wrong in relying on on that principle of law by by avoiding a self-defeating approach by going ahead to file the uh the uh um statement among other things um perhaps if if they say they were too lenient maybe it's because costs were not awarded in the in their favor as in the another legal team or maybe there's 10 kind of there's 10 punishment that is sought um or felt ought to have been applied didn't apply but i think all in all the supreme court did a balancing act by issue giving them a first time because this was the first time this had happened to them and so i think it was fair that they had given them the opportunity by extending time for them and they had also made the indignation quite known clearly they didn't they didn't means west by making them aware that they would apply the appropriate sanctions should they fail to um comply with the orders of the court um i think that sent a quite a good signal as to what the supreme court will be doing should they feel for the second time to do what they ought to do for me i think it's a balancing act and the supreme court did the most appropriate thing um i'm sure a word to the wise as we say it's always in the north and so clearly taking it from that angle um all of us moving forward will take the supreme court more serious on such matters and then we'll do what we are supposed to do in accordance with law in practice i do not think the supreme court was lenient at all i think they were they were fair and balanced in the in the decision that they made indeed if you had the ruling it was quite stained um i'm sure if that kind of words had been used on you you'd be more scared than than it um than maybe a cost being awarded against you or or so because the threat was that's scary for me and that is enough okay well mr pebble i want us to go through the shadow and i want you to help us with your own understanding of the shadow that we're following uh to get to the conclusion of this petition what's your understanding of it and where are we mr pebble if you can kind me on mutes so we can hear you yeah okay okay great yes yes sir i can yes guys on the shadow there appears down to be some confusion but for me i don't subscribe today so let's make the first point first the last part of the shuffle says judgment on the 42nd day yes judgment for the second day that is very clear but at the end of the 42nd day to then there is the word match so much the month of march so this is what is beginning to create a confusion that oh judgment should be a match but you see when we are interpreting statutes sometimes you see some apparent confusions but if what is written makes clear sense to an extent you go with that license so bobby the reason i don't subscribe to the trial stretching too much is that come back to the beginning the ci 99 stays very clear at 1. when the petition is filed and that doesn't they it's not the respondent has ten days has ten days to file an answer now you see when the respondents were filing their answer they felt within 10 ordinary days yes yes 10 normal days but the argument on the other side those who are saying you should try to match they're saying that we should count only the days the supreme court sits on the matter and what we are saying that most of us who don't subscribe to rate what we are saying that if the lawmaker wanted a 42 days should be counted as only on days on which the supreme court is on the matter they would have just made it very clear so let me give you an example where the lobby can make statute include in article 11 of the constitution at the level of the constitution you see that when you lay a ci before parliament in order for the ci to become law the constitution states clearly that they should have been 21 certain days 21 certain days so now we do we have time to refer to the constitution yes we do in fact we also are helping our viewers with the uh as contained in the ci9 so we have that also on the screen so you can go ahead and make your reference so people can also look at the timelines okay yes now so article 11 plus seven seven episode seven says any other rule or regulation made by a personal authority under a power conferred by this constitution or any other law shall release them to see come into force at the expiration of 21 certain days after being solely unless parliament blah blah blah you had 21 certain days so what i'm saying is that in ghana we already know how to write certain days anytime we want to write it and this is not the first time so since we know how to write certain days when the lawmaker goes to sleep and he doesn't use certain days we should be very slow in saying that he intended to write 16 days now we're sitting this is already common in our let me call it vocabulary let's reduce the terms so in right i lost if we didn't have vocabulary we know it so if in the constitution we've used the word certain days when we wanted to use it why is it that in fear 99 if we wanted to say the supreme court we should count 48 the 42 days using the less certain days why didn't they write it okay so so you disagree you you disagree that judgment would be in match or should be matched okay so is it is it 30 days today with your countdown today is 28th yeah 29 days the reason we said 29 is that the days started counting from the day the president was saved and the ec2 was saved and i was on that 31st so we got one day from december if we add to today 28th we get 29 days so in this idea we should be left with what uh is that 13 days to go okay all right i'll come to i'll come too okay yeah please go ahead let's let's hear you finish off yeah very briefly so it left with 11 days my thinking of the matter is that if we can finish the trial within the eleven they approach you their witnesses mounting their box if we can finish within the 11 days that would be good then the justices will again for judgment there is already a supreme court decision okay from about 2001 expertise ppe that if their losses bring a judgement within a certain time and they are unable to bring it within that time but outside it doesn't make the judgment void so if we can finish within the next 11 days and then the justices rise to go and bring their judgments outside the 42 days it's legal we already have laws covering that so it's not a problem okay all right um let me let me before i come to you miss abdullah for your own understanding of the shuttle and where you think we are whether or not you agree with mr martin people let me go to the courts because our correspondent jose vaccable is there already for us joseph if you can hear me i see that you're showing me pictures of the supreme court are you able to tell us who has arrived for today's hearing um so mamavi i got here about 10 minutes ago and so far i've spotted adidas he's a member of mr mohammed's legal team together with sami jim feed the national communications officer of the ndc those are the two individuals that i've supported they're already here are the premises of the supreme court and so as you can see this is the main entrance for noun this is where you come in and so you have someone who takes your temperature there are the veronica buckets two of them are the entrance where you were sharing before you go and there are two policemen there there are some other policemen also here on the premises who are working to take their post in different parts of the supreme court premise and so and this is the situation here as we speak and in some few minutes we'll be expecting the other individuals who are all connected to this case to come here to the supreme court and so this is the situation here at the supreme court marvin okay great a couple of you were in courts when uh you know the the court agent sitting the last time did they say what we should expect today because there's the pending issue of the review there's also amendment to that review in fact the specific point their court made in reading its directive was to say that the cases attained to the 28th of january but before then we know that it had made the point that there are a number of outstanding issues and said that because the lawyers for the petitioners have failed to abide or comply with that court directive the court was not going to do any business in relation to uh those issues to the adulterate first we know that the interrogatory's review ruling is still pending there's a request that the court reveals that decision and that is originally slated for today and the second issue is that there is a request by mr mahmoud legality maxine that they are allowed to file additional documents to support that review and also to change the paragraph in the review and so that is also another issue that is equally outstanding there is a bit about asking the ac chair person to admit to certain facts which is also another issue that has also not been dealt with and so those are the matters that are outstanding for now and uh once the court comes in we understand that it appears one of the issues it may urgently deal with is the request that they are mr mahmoud team is allowed to file additional documents in relation to the review uh because today's originally for the review and we understand that that may be the first you they deal with then the review is dealt with then afterwards uh if the court is minded to allow for the preteen guarantee to take off then it will take off and since the court gave is directive the last time their diets have been complied with the two witness statements have been filed and also the legal arguments in response to the initial objection has also been fired as well okay aka if you may maybe just stay with me just a little longer if you can whatever the time will allow us you if you so that you can update us in terms of who has arrived but let me come to you just as i'm delight on the shuttle as we have where do you think we are do you agree with martin pebble um not entirely i i do admit that um we've exhausted the time um well not everything but we've spent quite a lot of time doing other um other things other than the main things that we should be doing indeed if you do can't we are in the second week of when um here ought to have started but i i would like to take the time quite liberally um from the point of view of when events actually start so when um the the rule says that on the 10th they pre-trial ought to start and then on the 15th day a hearing or to start yeah um i would like to interpret it liberally by saying that once um the 15 day actually would start from the day that the um will start from the day that the pre-trial was done so assuming pre-trial in this case pre-trial was done somewhere last week and here in ottawa started um as per the rules on tuesday on tuesday so um if you take it from that library ground then it means that we've really lost just about um three days or two days um really um from from when the pre-trial was i mean okay because and i take this view because um until the events that ought to happen happens it's difficult to um to count time i mean in this regard um but if you go by the other side that's the the the january and then the match and the 42d and the first day each argument i i the view that i take is that um the worst case scenario is that by much judgment ought to have been delivered and this also takes into consideration my argument that the day actually starts counting from the day that the event that ought to have happened on that day happens so if on the 10th the pre-trial ought to have happened and it didn't happen anybody rather happened on the 15th day then it is only from the 15th day that you start counting the day of hearing okay so it means that the 20th day would rather be the day of hearing rather than the 15th day when you actually did the pre-trial i don't know whether you are getting a very interesting perspective but they say lawyers don't agree right so you have different perspectives so this is a different angle to it and i certainly appreciate it yeah i want to move on and talk about the review uh martin pebble if you can hear me and if you're still with us should we should we expect a reconstitution of that panel because we know for a review there will have to be additional judges added to the original panel so this one they what you call it it's difficult to say so you see the ordinary review usually happens when the supreme court has made the decision that's the end of it okay so when we say end of it meaning that the it comes to an end um what do you call it the under the rules you go you go to the supreme court ordinary bench five people find that species they give a decision then after if you ask for a review then they add or if it's a conventional matter you actually review them but this one it is an interlocutory matter when i say interlocutory means that it happened while the supreme court has not yet finished hearing the kids let's repeat so this one is different so because it's flukation using different approaches this time i will stick my neck out i'll wait but the distinction is that there's that decision this time the supreme court is dealing with the matter deflation finish it's not found out that meant that we went or we are going for a review so the review review we are used to offering it arrives in the context that this true party says let's say you can appeal there five guesses headed and they finished then you want a review then you add two to get seven or if it's a constitutional method that you used seven justices and then the little gun lost he wants a review then you add two again nine right but i'm saying that this particular one it's a case in which the case is still ongoing so because it's still ongoing i'll just take out my neck to say they would bring another two to here then after that that attitude go okay so let's say the high court when the case is still ongoing and you ask the guy to review they don't add judges you see so because of that i just uh not uh stick out my neck and say bye my understanding of it is that because the case is so ongoing different between this kind of review and the other review we are used to all right that's it okay well very interesting justice of july should we expect the court will now rise uh to be reconstituted i'm not likely at all we are likely to have the same panel making all the decisions and then move forward with the trial of the mata we are not likely to have any any drama today i i do not foresee any drama happening today um i do rather expect a quick decision to be taken um considering that the supreme court is banned on commencing the trial and so i do expect a lot of quick decisions um unfortunately because of the multiplicity of applications i do not foresee that possibility of the applications being moved that swiftly for to enable them make a decision as quick as we'd expected today i expect that we have a very long day today due to dependency of the multiplicity of applications um but beyond that um i think everything should be smooth and and organized and not nothing surprising really happening can we have the substantive matter being dealt with at least started today most likely not um despite the the insistence and and and the body language of the supreme court i do not foresee um try our commencement today um the likeliest day we may probably have our trial maybe next week maybe next week because i most likely there you know there may not be certain tomorrow there's i mean they have to agent some of the applications to tomorrow then then it can be guaranteed that they would want to start their trial next week but outside of that um the applications are too many and listening to the applicants you can clearly see that they take their time to make their um to move the application they really take their time to move the application they do not take anything for granted they go almost word by word on every single thing that they file and that is likely to be repeated today and should that be repeated given take between 2 and 3 p.m we should still be in court okay well that will be a familiar sight is that your guts feeling too no this time around you see the applications it doesn't look like going forward the call can give hours and hours fall no perus allows the justices really read what has been submitted and render their judgment give an opinion but of course because the stakes are very high they would definitely give the lawyer some time to speak but going forward it doesn't look like one hour for each lawyer is going to be that numb for the applications definitely the time will have to cut down because we are behind well as i said because of the way i read the shadow that's the timeline the 42 days it doesn't look like the lawyers can be allowed to give very long arguments okay all right now let's make one point okay as part of the review usually you would argue your law so it means that the justices have already seen their arguments on paper they can also read but of course it's always good to allow a lawyer sometimes to brief some life into their lifeless weight on paper so the body key thing is that the justices have seen the arguments already because as part of the review you would present the arguments so they've read so they say okay yes uh you may take some time lawyer return later to make your point maybe the essential ones you want to emphasize for our consideration but not word for word as a just example i was saying they're very slow long one not that one it doesn't appear there's time for that okay all right great let me go to jose vaccable joseph we're still seeing uh the videos uh your videos where you're showing us the supreme court as we've been talking who has come in and so what elia had mentioned that uh mr mcclure had sure really just walked into at the courtroom while you're conducting your interview with a private legal practitioners uh mr angelos deborah the former chief of staff also i worked in during that interview as well uh then [Music] octari who uh we know what's in the office of the former president also i worked in just a short while ago so far i've not spotted anyone on the side of the respondents in terms of either the electoral commission chairperson or the president's legal team but with regards to the petitioners uh those are individuals who are uh either closely related or working closely with them who have come to the supreme court all right great let me get into the final matters uh with martin pebble and justice abdullah and hopefully we can get a final report from akably before he takes his seats in the courtroom uh mr pebble a lot of us are waking up to the news that john dramani muhammad's legal team [Music] has filed the awareness statement we are hearing pesa whites and john cena syrian catia what does that mean well however the first point is that in these battles um you have to be careful in order not to reap too much into things that you see with your eyes you have to wait for them to unfold now the second point is this you see that when they filed the case they indicated that we're going to call five witnesses and i think this morning i had baba jamal on another station saying that they had reduced their number because time is far spent so you see that even within their camp they are sensitive to the fact that it's an issue of time constraint so so if i can go with what baba jamal stated then it means that they are doing it in order to expedite the trial at least that's what he said he's a senior member of the nbc so for him to have said so what it means is that reducing it from five to two means that they want to help the court to come to an expeditious uh hearing or to conclude expeditiously okay so we so this is that i put it to you the way you put you put it sometimes to us this is where they will matter right exactly so it means that dr aquessa right and i see blanket yeah would be the ones to mount the witness stamp or box yes so they would do they will answer the questions you and i were not there the pink sheets yes they will bring out the pinches the collision sheets and all that okay if there are powerpoint presentations yes then they will bring them out too okay great uh justice abdullah just you know your thoughts on on the same issue of the witness statement the fact that there's been a reduction in terms of the witnesses is that acceptance of some kind of defeat not entirely um i had said um yesterday that really when filing a matter and you are asked to indicate the number of what nurses it is the normal practice that you you'd like any other budget or estimate you indicate more just so um when the actualities um unfold you you will not be caught hands down um it's it's a better strategy than indicating that you don't call three witnesses only for you to discover that you actually will need ten witnesses and then you may not have the room to call all those additional witnesses so if you indicate more and it turns out that you actually need less then um you are aware within your comfort zone you you are not you don't find yourself panting and and then gasping for for air so i think that is a um is a better strategy going into this battle that the the jamahama team adopted by indicating five and then radar ended up calling three i'm sorry two um um except to say that i was rather surprised about i had predicted that i actually think i was going to be a witness a better witness and a star witness for the muhammad team because he had followed the entire election throughout i mean from the from the moment i mean from the beginning to the end he was almost in almost every constituency he was almost in every court and then he he also has a better experience because he had um be he was a witness in the 2012 um election petition which was also quite a serious um um um the trial that he he went through and so he had gathered all these experiences and had also and had all these rich experience following the elections and and then all of that so for me his testimony um i mean he being a witness in this matter for me is quite good for the nbc team um the surprising bit is um white um um maybe um maybe out of my ignorance i i do not um beyond the fact that of course he's an ndc and he's a lecturer at lagoon and all of that he was in the coalition center the national one right yes wow very good very good so maybe that puts him in a somewhat better position to tell us what indeed happened within those areas and then and how he feels those things went against them um um because um otherwise i i um i like i said if you take the caliber for sydney katia and maybe people at the national headquarters or maybe people at the mohammed's office who were probably clearly following the entire event unfolding um because really to be a witness as the law says you need to be a person who has either witnessed it by by hearing it or by by seeing it or by feeling it or by all the senses having collectively i'm having a feel of the event and much as i didn't know um more about pressure white i felt people who have also gathered more experience and had also experienced the event unfold would be the best persons to to give testimony um of course that is not to say that because the white house doesn't have that caliber but that is to say that i am i am i don't know him that well okay to be able to see that he's the best person um to to to be a sitting cat yes um um i'm calling me a running beat as a witness okay well i guess time will tell all right absolutely all right that's the first time to everything indeed yeah so maybe he may be able to pull some surprises for all of us and um something good may come out of this okay all of us all right um gentlemen i'd like to say thank you martin pebble and justice abdullah thank you for the pro bono services that you provide particularly to me on the show and hopefully we can have a conversation i have already informed samson that i'll be sending you a bill we don't have a contract do we thank you martin table thank you uh keep following this issue we will talk some more oh i think that feed is frozen on us already mr people were you saying something okay no no i'll say okay all right great joseph acable let me end with you uh what is happening was it favor i saw in there so there are yes that was downstream okay great so all the international journalists are also they're very interested in this 2020 election uh petition what is the what is the last update before you get into the courtroom uh there hasn't been any development since we last spoke in terms of the arrivals and so i was just waiting to finish up with you and get inside and get my seat upstairs where i have a good view and a better view than you have in the studio but obviously we'll be here to bring our viewers the very latest that transpires here in a court absolutely joseph cable i wish you the very best uh trust that he would not miss anything he's our court correspondent he's been following this issue and he will be bringing us some more updates that's our conversation this morning on the 2020 election petition here in the court is set to sit uh from 9 30 this morning stay with us we've got a healthy thursday conversation coming up next the ghana health service is worried about neglected tropical diseases we get into this matter up next

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Keywords: Ghana Political Issues, Ghana Politics, Matters Arising in Ghana, NPP, CPP, NDC, PPP, National Budget, Chieftaincy, Ghanaian lawyers, Economy, Constitution, Election, campaign, YouTube, joy News, Latest NewsPaper headlines, News in Ghana, AM Show

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Length: 43min 10sec (2590 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021