State appeals against court ruling

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (Page 31)

THE state has appealed against the ruling of the Human Rights Division of the High Court which ordered the Director of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and two others to appear before it and openly answer contempt charges levelled against them by a former Minister of Information, Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng.
A Chief State Attorney, Ms Helen Kwawukume, prayed the court to adjourn the matter sine die because the state had filed a notice of appeal and a stay of execution against the court’s decision.
She also informed the court that the Court of Appeal had fixed November 30, 2009 as the date for hearing of the motion.
On October 29, 2009, the court declined to grant a request by the Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Department, which prayed it to hear the matter in camera in order to protect the identity of the respondents.
Mr Asamoah-Boateng, his wife, Zuleika Jennifer Lorwia, Nana Yaw Asamoah-Boateng and Andrew Asamoah-Boateng instituted the contempt action against the three respondents, Yaw Donkor, Josephine Gandawiri, Stephen Abrokwa, and the A-G for preventing them from travelling outside the country on two occasions without recourse to a court order.
However, counsel for Mr Asamoah-Boateng, Nene Amegatcher, opposed the Chief State Attorney’s prayer and said the matter was a contempt application and it was, therefore, unfortunate that the respondents had not appeared before the court as directed.
He said the respondents had shown disrespect to the court by refusing to appear before it without any reason and further submitted that the court was not bound to stay proceedings in the matter because it (court) had not received any order to that effect from the higher courts as required under the law.
He further prayed the court to order the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to cause the arrest of the respondents and subsequently grant them bail but the court declined to do so.
Replying, Mrs Kwawukume said what her colleague sought the court to do was exactly what her outfit had appealed against.
She then prayed the court to adjourn the matter to a day after November 30, 2009.
The presiding judge, Mr Justice U. P. Dery, informed the parties that he would be on leave from now till a day in January 2010 and subsequently adjourned the matter to January 20, 2010.
In the court’s ruling on October 29, 2009, Mr Justice Dery disagreed with the A-G Department’s suggestion that it would be inimical to the identities of the respondents to be blown, stating that the BNI and the police enjoyed the same rights and protection.
He said he had carefully studied the Securities and Intelligence Act (Act 526), which clearly spelt out the rights of the police and the BNI as the same and for that reason “the BNI cannot be given special treatment”.
The contempt action was instituted when the four applicants were prevented from travelling outside the country on June 14, 2009 without any court order or warrant, following which they filed an application seeking an injunction to restrain the BNI from further preventing them from travelling without a court order.
While the application was pending, the applicants claimed the BNI again disregarded the action and prevented them from travelling on another date.