Contradiction in Supreme Court VerdictT?

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Created on Friday, 30 August 2013 00:00

Contradiction in Supreme Court Verdict?

...As Baffoe-Bonnie grants and dismisses Voting Without Biometric Verification at the same time

The summary judgement issued by the Supreme Court Justices yesterday on the 2012 Presidential Election Petition appears to be replete with some kind of contradictions that may come as a source of confusion to many people.

The nine Supreme Court judges yesterday stated that the “overall effect” of their decisions on the various grounds of irregularities implied that President John Mahama was validly elected, and thus dismissed the petition brought by the petitioners.

However, a careful study of this judgement delivered by Justice William Atuguba has revealed that one of the Justices surprisingly upheld and dismissed, at the same time, the violation of “No biometric verification”.

Paragrah 5 of the judgement states that: “Atuguba, Adinyira, Dotse, Baffoe-Bonnie, Gbadebge and Akoto Bamfo dismiss the claim relating to voting without biometric verification.”

Paragraph 9 of the judgement also reads that “Baffoe-Bonnie JSC grants the claim of voting without biometric verification, cancels the votes involved and orders a rerun of the areas affected.”

The situation of Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie upholding the claims that 705,305 votes in 1,739 polling stations have to be cancelled because those votes were cast without biometric verification, whilst at the same time dismissing the same claim has led many Ghanaians wondering about what he meant by his two conflicting decisions.

“How can Justice Baffoe-Bonnie dismiss and uphold one irregularity in the same judgement. This does not add up and the 9 Justices certainly have some answers to provide the Ghanaian public,” a source close to the petitioners yesterday stated.

Another cursory glance at the names of the nine Supreme Court Justices, as provided on the front page with the title “CORAM” also reveals that the name of Justice Rose Constance Owusu was omitted from the names of judges who sat on the case.

The detailed individual judgements of the nine Supreme Court Justices will be made available next week, even though Justice William Atuguba had indicated to the parties that they could obtain them at the Registry of the Supreme Court.

Source: The Statesmanonline