Thursday, August 27, 2009 (Page 3)
THE Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Department will on September 3, 2009 move its motion for stay of execution of the Accra High Court order directing the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to return the passport of Mr Akwasi Osei-Adjei, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The date was fixed after the Human Rights Court had upheld an application for abridgement of the time of hearing of the application originally fixed for October 12, 2009.
In upholding Mr Osei-Adjei’s motion for the abridgement of time which was filed on his behalf by his counsel, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, the trial judge held that he (judge) was appointed a vacation judge by a letter dated July 29, 2009.
According to the judge, the letter gave him the authority to sit as a vacation judge.
The court also held that the application for stay of execution was filed during the vacation and considering the human rights nature of the action, it was important that the case was heard during the vacation period.
It accordingly abridged the date of hearing of the motion from October 12, 2009 to September 3, 2009.
An affidavit in support of the motion deposed by Mr Osei-Adjei had said, “the fixing of the hearing of the appellant’s application for stay of execution for October 12, 2009 violates the rules of court and is a ploy to deny me my fundamental human rights guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.”
It said the motion could be heard and determined in the vacation and, for that reason, fixing of same for until after the vacation was calculated at frustrating him from “enjoying the fruits of the judgement of this honourable court”.
“This Honourable Court is a vacation court and the presiding judge, a vacation judge, who is competent to hear and determine the appellant’s motion for stay of execution, thereby rendering the fixing of the appellant’s motion for October 12 unnecessary,” the affidavit in support stated.
It, therefore, prayed the court to abridge the date for the hearing of the appellant’s motion for stay of execution.
However, according to the A-G’s Department, Mr Osei-Adjei was a subject of criminal investigations and it had reliable information to indicate that he was likely to abscond from the jurisdiction if his passport was handed over to him.
It said the passport of the former minister was seized on lawful grounds, adding that the appeal would be rendered a nugatory, if Mr Osei-Adjei’s passport was released and the state’s appeal succeeded.
The grounds of the appeal, among others, stated that the trial judge erred when he held that the seizure of Mr Osei-Adjei’s passport was unlawful.
It said the court did not take into account the fact that Mr Osei-Adjei was a subject of criminal investigation.
The Human Rights Division of the High Court had on Tuesday, August 11, 2009, ruled that the BNI did not have the power to seize the passport of the former minister, adding that the action violated his fundamental human rights because it did not follow the due process of law.
Mr Osei-Adjei sued the Director of the BNI and the Attorney-General (A-G) for the seizure of his passport and described the action as “flagrantly unlawful and a palpable violation” of his human rights.
He sought an order directed at the Director of the BNI to release his passport unconditionally but the A-G’s Department held a different view and said the detention of Mr Osei-Adjei's passport was on the grounds that the BNI was mandated under the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act (Act 526) to investigate him.
In its ruling, however, the court struck out the suit against the Director of the BNI, saying that the functions of the BNI made it a state institution whose acts were done on behalf of the Republic and, therefore, was not properly sued.
It said civil proceedings in which the state or its agency was involved, the A-G was the rightful body to be sued.
No comments:
Post a Comment