THE Attorney-General’s (A-G) Department has filed for stay of execution of an High Court order directing the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to return the passport of a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Akwasi Osei-Adjei.
According to the A-G’s Department, Mr Osei-Adjei was a subject of criminal investigations and it had reliable information to indicate that the respondent 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.
Hearing for the application has been fixed for October 12, 2009 but counsel for Mr Osei-Adjei, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, has filed a motion for the hearing date to be abridged to an earlier date.
A motion filed on August 19, 2009 said “curiously, the appellant’s application for stay of execution was fixed for hearing on October 12, 2009”.
An affidavit in support of the motion deposed by Mr Osei-Adjei 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.
According to Mr Osei-Adjei, the instant application was maliciously inspired and merely a devious attempt by the appellant to deny him his fundamental human rights under the Constitution.
He said the appeal was unmeritorious and it raised serious questions of law and/or fact for the consideration of the Court of Appeal and the appellant had failed to demonstrate any chance of success of the appeal on the basis of which this application ought not be granted.
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 that in civil proceedings in which the state or its agency was involved, the A-G was the rightful body to be sued.
A cattle farmer, Mr Sumaila Biebel, had filed an application seeking a declaration that the MP should be ordered to vacate his seat because he was a British national and for that matter did not qualify to sit as an MP in Ghana.
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