Tuesday, October 29, 2008 (Page 3 Lead)
THE Supreme Court has held that the trial judge who sentenced Tsatsu Tsikata to five years’ imprisonment exercised her discretion properly and lawfully when she refused to adjourn proceedings on the date Tsikata was imprisoned.
“From the record, the applicant was treated equally by the judge without any discrimination. It also follows that the trial judge performed her duty in the application before her with fairness and the requisite degree of candour. In our view, she exercised her discretion in the matter judicially and in compliance with Article 296,” the court declared.
“The Supreme Court’s supervisory jurisdiction over the superior courts is one which has far reaching potential and as such it is important that we exercise it with circumspection so as to achieve the purpose for which we were given such power in the first place. We are not to use this power to interfere unduly with the exercise of judicial discretion, nor are we to allow it to be used as an alternative to appeal,” the court pointed out.
Before his conviction on June 18, 2008, Tsikata had prayed the Accra Fast Track High Court to adjourn proceedings, since his counsel was not present to move an application to lead fresh evidence in the matter in which he had been accused of causing financial loss to the state.
However, the trial judge declined to adjourn proceedings and accordingly directed Tsikata to move his application but he refused.
The trial judge, Mrs Justice Henrietta Abban, then dismissed the application for want of prosecution and went ahead to deliver judgement which was to have been delivered in December 2006 but had been on hold awaiting the outcome of interlocutory appeals filed by Tsikata.
Tsikata then filed an application at the Supreme Court praying the court to quash the processes which led to his conviction, as well as arrest its judgement on whether or not to order the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to testify in his case.
The court, on October 16, 2008, dismissed both applications and described them as without merit and informed parties in the matter that the court would file its reasons on Friday, October 24, 2008.
In its reasons, the court said the learned trial judge did not commit any error when she struck out the application for want of prosecution.
“She had the power to do so and she exercised that power without denying the applicant any of his constitutional or legal rights,” the five-member panel, presided over by Ms Justice Sophia Akuffo, pointed out.
The court, which had Mr Justice Julius Ansah, Mrs Justice Rose Owusu, Mr Justice Jones Dotse and Mr Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie as the other panel members, said there was no evidence of prejudice on the part of the trial judge.
According to the court, the totality of the evidence proved that Tsikata had the chance to a fair trial and pointed out that he chose to cause an application to be filed on his behalf when he was fully aware that his counsel was due to travel within a matter of a few days for a considerable period of time.
Citing authorities to buttress its point, the court said, “Having done so, he chose not to arrange for representation by another counsel or to represent himself,” adding that “in such a case it will not be reasonable to say that any rights of the applicant were in any way prejudiced or breached in any manner”.
For that matter, the court held that the trial judge did not act capriciously or arbitrarily when she proceeded with the reading of her judgement rather than continue to await the outcome of the appeal on the IFC issue at the Supreme Court.
“The decision whether or not to adjourn a court’s proceedings from one day to another is purely at the discretion of the judge presiding over that court. It was in the exercise of that discretion that the trial judge, from December 2006, kept adjourning the reading of her judgement from date to date.
“Also undisputed is the fact that, as pointed out by the Honourable Attorney-General, at no time did the Supreme Court (or any other court) make any order binding the trial judge from delivering her judgement pending the outcome of the interlocutory appeal,” the court held.
Tsikata, a former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), was found guilty on June 18, 2008 on three counts of wilfully causing financial loss of GH¢230,000 to the state and another count of misapplying public property and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently.
He was charged in 2002 with the offence for guaranteeing a loan for Valley Farms, a private cocoa producing company, on behalf of the GNPC and another count of misapplying GH¢2,000 of public property.
Valley Farms contracted the loan from Caisse Francaise de Developement in 1991 but defaulted in the payment and the GNPC, which acted as the guarantor, was compelled to pay it in 1996.
He, however, denied any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, an appeal against his conviction is pending before the Appeals Court.
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