The Supreme Court has told the former President John Dramani Mahama that it would not hesitate to dismiss the election petition case if its orders continue to be disobeyed.
Tony Lithur, the Counsel to the Petitioner, said the team did not apply its witnesses because of serious issues in the case.
He suggested that Mr Mahama had asked the Apex court to reconsider his dismissal of his
authorization to send some 12 interrogatory questions to the EC, along with a stay of proceedings.
But there was a lack of satisfaction among the seven-member panel of judges hearing the petition – Chief
Justice Anin Yeboah; Justice Yaw Appau, Marful Sau, Professor Ashie Kotei, Mariama Owusu, Nene Amegatcher and Gertrude Tokonor.
They argued that the evidence should have been filed as instructed by the court, as Mr. Mahama had previously claimed that he had five witnesses to support his case.
The hearing today follows a decision from the court on 20th January, 2021 that the final
judgment will be made on the election petition and that 42 days’ timeframe will also be fulfilled.
These questions were included in the Apex Court; whether or not a reasonable cause of action was made available and whether or not any candidate received more than 50% of the votes cast by reference to the data available.
Again, the Apex Court has claimed it would decide “if more than 50 per cent of voting was obtained by the
second respondent by exclusion or incorporation of the results from the Techiman South Constituency and whether the declaration was or was not in breach of the Constitution.”
Finally, the court noted that it would determine whether the suspected padding of votes had or would not have influenced the declared results.
In view of this, the Judges ordered that in the case of the petitioner, former President John Dramani Mahama, he should file his witness statements by Thursday, and by Friday, the respondents, consisting of the Electoral Committee and the President, Akufo-Addo filed the same statement.
The case has been adjourned to January 28.
Ghana 
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