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IMANI-Africa President, Franklin Cudjoe has questioned President Nana Akufo-Addo’s decision to appoint Godfred Dame whom he criticized as someone who supports injustices to a group of citizens as his Minister for Justice.
“It is a shame that we have an Attorney-General designate [Godfred Dame] who was never interested in the grave disenfranchisement of almost 30,000 human beings by his beloved do-no-good EC,” Franklin Cudjoe said in a Facebook post on Sunday.
He claimed Godfred Dame was just in a hurry to argue in court that the Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Lipke(SALL) citizens should remain stateless, without representation in Parliament.
A US-based Ghanaian lawyer, Professor Kwaku Asare, aka Kwaku Azar, says the Speaker of Parliament together with the House must take immediate steps towards the reparation of the wrongs made against the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi (SALL) in the December 07 general elections.
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The petitioners said the failure of the Electoral Commission (EC) to allow them to vote in the parliamentary elections breached their rights guaranteed under the constitution.
The petitioners include Simon Alan Opoku Mintah, John Kwame Obimpeh, Godfred Koku Kofie, and Felix Quarshie, all residents of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi (SALL).
Eligible voters within areas in the newly created district; namely Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi, were only allowed to take part in the presidential election but could not vote in the parliamentary election because a constituency had not been created for them.
The applicants demanded the enforcement of their fundamental human rights to vote.
The supreme court has set Monday, January 4, 2020, to hear a case challenging the order of a High Court in Ho that granted an injunction against the swearing-in of Member of Parliament-elect for Hohoe Constituency of the Volta Region, Peter John Amewu.
A five-member panel of the Supreme Court presided over by Justice Yaw Appau has granted an application for an abridgment of time for the expeditious handling of the case.
The Court prior to fixing the hearing date ordered the interested parties to file their response to the application by Thursday, December 31, at 12noon.
While the AGs department also files within the same day.
Analysis of how the judge in ‘Amewu injunction case’ erred in law and in facts
It is submitted that the judge who granted the application for interim injunction purporting, first of all, to restrain the EC from gazetting the parliamentary results of the Hohoe Constituency, and also to restrain the MP-Elect for the Constituency, John Peter Amewu, from being sworn-in in Parliament, did not only err in law but also in fact. To start with, the judgment had been overtaken by events and therefore moot. This is because the very action the application sought to injunct had already happened thereby making the judgment unenforceable by reason of it being ex post facto.