A High Court judge in Kumasi, Justice Senyo Amedaho and seven others, including the Ashanti Regional Police Commander, have been cited for contempt for allegedly exhibiting conducts intended to undermine the sanctity of the judiciary and administration of justice.
Other respondents in the quasi-criminal case are the Asokwa District Magistrate, Korkor Owusu Achaw; private legal practitioner, Bright Kyei Mensah Sarpong of Totoe Legal Service; the Registrar of the Asokwa District Court, police officer called Ofori of the SWAT Unit in Kumasi, one Bernard Kwasi Dwumoh and Nana Yaw Owusu, Mpaboahene of Manhyia.
Counsel for Abena Birago and six other applicants, Nana Obiri Boahen, is praying to the Kumasi High Court to commit all the respondents into prison for allegedly acting together and individually to demolish House/no K75, a three storey building at Ashanti New Town in Kumasi.
On May 12, 2021, Nana Obiri Boahen is expected to move the application to commit the respondents to prison, averring that the respondents committed the act at the time an application for “stay of execution” was pending before the Court of Appeal, Kumasi, with November 24, 2020 as the returning date.
In a motion on notice for attachment for contempt, Nana Obiri Boahen said the conduct of the judge, magistrate, police commander and the five others, had rendered the said application in the case titled: Bernard Kwasi Dwumoh vs. Kofi Owusu, Comfort Aboagyewaa and others (suit no. H3/31/2021), null, void and irrelevant.
He argued further that the conduct of the respondents had defeated the entire purpose that led to the mounting of the civil suit.
In an affidavit in support of the application, one of the applicants, Abena Birago said respondent Bernard Kwasi Dwumoh mounted an action against her and other applicants at the District Court – Asokwa, “praying for our ejection from our family house.”
According to the affidavit, they resisted the said action. However, on May 28, 2020, the District Court, Asokwa, delivered a judgment in favour of Mr. Dwumoh.
Unsatisfied with the judgment, they filed an appeal at a High Court and asked the District Magistrate Court to stay execution.
She stated that the District Court refused the application for stay of execution, adding “our counsel filed an appeal against the refusal of the application for Stay of Execution by the District Court, Asokwa.”
“Our counsel then repeated the application for Stay of Execution before the High Court, Kumasi, and that our application for ‘Stay of Execution’ came before His Lordship Justice Senyo Amedaho, the sixth respondent in the contempt case, who sat as the High Court Judge.”
The affidavit said that on August 24, 2020, the sixth respondent dismissed their application without even allowing or permitting their counsel, Nana Obiri Boahen, who held the brief of “our substantive counsel to argue out our application.”
“That upon the receipt of the information that respondents Nana Yaw Owusu, Bernard Kwasi Dwumoh, Bright Kyei Mensah and the magistrate, Korkor Owusu Achaw had hatched a plan to demolish the entire building, our counsel filed another application for Stay of Execution.”
Birago averred that indeed, the application was fixed for hearing on September 22, 2020, but curiously, unknown to them, Bernard Kwasi Dwumoh, on August 28, 2020, caused an application to be filed at his behest and prayed for an abridgment of time.
On September 3, 2020, she asserted that a Good Samaritan, “who was privy to our case and was attending to his personal matter at the court premises,” saw respondent Dwumoh there and relayed the information to them.
She said while the application for stay of execution was pending before the Court of Appeal, the respondent magistrate, on September 10, 2020, issued and signed an order of possession and writ of possession to respondent Bernard Kwasi Dwumoh, contrary to the Rules of Court (CI 59).
The affidavit indicated that Justice Senyo Amedaho had been joined to the application of contempt because he, as a high court judge, sat on the application for abridgment of time from September 22, 2020 which said application came on September 3, 2020.
He accordingly granted the said application and “fixed same for hearing on September 4, 2020, a clear abuse of the legal process.”
“The judge by writing to the Ashanti Regional Police Commander on September 10, 2020 and requesting the police chief’s assistance to go into execution, undermined the potency, efficiency, essence and value of the judicial system, and spited the administration of justice,” the affidavit noted.
“The conduct of the sixth respondent (Justice Sanyo) is even more serious when one considers the fact that the letter addressed to the regional commander, Ghana Police Service, was written on the letterhead of the Asokwa District Magistrate Court,” it said.
It averred that the judge, who is not the next on the ladder on the hierarchy of judges in the Ashanti Region, got the stamp of the Supervising High Court Judge to stamp the said letter and signed it for and on behalf of the Supervising High Court Judge.
The affidavit said this is “dangerous and mischievous” and that the act “portends danger for the judiciary as an institution. This, I am advised by counsel and verily believe the same to be true.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu