General News of Tuesday, 3 August 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-08-03Assin North ruling is plagiarized writings from Wikipedia – Sammy Gyamfi
Sammy Gyamfi, National Communication Officer, NDC
• Sammy Gyamfi has said the ruling that ousted the Assin North MP from Parliament was plagiarized from Wikipedia
• He stated that the case did not go through a trial
• The NDC has since filed an appeal to overturn the ruling
Read full articletarget='_blank' href='/GhanaHomePage/people/person.php?ID=3412'>Sammy Gyamfi, National Communication Officer, NDC, has indicated that the ruling of the High Court in Cape Coast which has ousted the Assin North legislator from Parliament was full of plagiarized contents from Wikipedia.
A High Court in Cape Coast on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, declared the 2020 parliamentary election held in the Assin North Constituency as null and void.
According to the trial judge Justice Boakye, the National Democratic Congress’ 2020 parliamentary candidate for the constituency, James Gyakye Quayson breached the provisions of the constitution concerning dual citizenship.
He, then, ordered for a fresh election to be conducted in the constituency.
But speaking on Joy FM, Monday, August 2, Sammy Gyamfi stated that the trial judge determined the case in accordance with Canadian law.
“And if you look at section 1 subsection 2 of the Evidence Act of Ghana, issues of foreign law are questions of facts which the Supreme Court has said can only be determined at the trial stage through the abduction of evidence; in this case, there was no evidence before the court.
“He [the trial judge] resorted or if you like plagiarized some writings from Wikipedia and sort to determine issues of foreign law on his own as a judge with when he has no such powers under the Evidence Act in this country; he didn’t even allow the matter to go for trial, abduction of evidence or expert witness to be called so clearly, he did not determine that issue with accordance with the law,” Gyamfi explained.
He further indicated that the decision of the judge to annul the election on grounds that the NDC legislator was not qualified at the time of nomination “violates section 20(1)(d) of PNDC Law 284 which says that a High Court can only annul a parliamentary election if the candidate was not qualified as of the time of election no nomination, so, the judge got that wrong.”
Meanwhile, the NDC has filed an appeal to overturn the decision of the High Court in Cape Coast.
According to the lawyers of the ousted MP, the decision of the court was not based on settled laws and was in clear violation of the 1992 constitution.
Background
After he was declared winner in the constituency’s election, James Gyakye Quayson was dragged to court by Michael Ankomah-Nimfa, a resident of Assin Bereku in the Central Region.
Akomah-Ninfa filed a petition at the Cape Coast High Court seeking to annul the declaration of James Gyakye Quayson as the Member of Parliament for the Assin North Constituency for owing allegiance to Canada.
In November last year, a group calling itself ‘Concerned Citizens of Assin North’ petitioned the Electoral Commission in the Central Region to withdraw the candidature of Gyakye Quayson, arguing that he owes allegiance to Canada.
According to Article 94 (2) (a) of the 1992 constitution of Ghana, “A person shall not be qualified to be a member of Parliament if he or she – (a) owes allegiance to a country other than Ghana.”
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), had insisted that their MP is “a full citizen of Ghana who owes no allegiance whatsoever to any other country. He is a Ghanaian in law and, in fact, qualifies to be a Member of Parliament according to the laws of Ghana.”
