A private legal practitioner Justice Abdulai has said the success in tendering the audio recording capturing Attorney-General Godfred Dame and the third accused in the Ambulance trial is the biggest victory for Ato Forson and Jakpa in court on Thursday, June 6, though their application for mistrial was dismissed.
He stated that one of the main actions of Ato Forson and Jakpa was to tender the audio recording as part of the evidence in court.
“For the applicants, I believe that the fight continues. Let us all remember that the applicants might have lost the motion but they succeeded in one significant thing that even the A-G is displeased with.
“It tells you, the applicants in reality actually won the biggest battle in this whole enterprise considering that what they sought to do was to ensure that the tape goes into evidence. Part of the application was for the applicants to be cross-examined and this part of the cross-examination was to ensure that either the transcript or the actual tape gets admitted and they had a difficult task of doing this.
“Thanks to God they succeeded in doing just exactly that, they achieved that part of the objective. They might have lost the mistrial but really, the truth is that they went there knowing that that that was the most difficult part because as part of our criminal jurisprudence, we don’t have anything close to that unlike the US and other parts of the world where you could find this jurisprudence.,” he said on the News 360 on TV3 while reacting to the dismissal of the application for a mistrial.
Meanwhile, the trial judge Justice Efia Serwah Asare-Botwey said that the tape did not reveal any instruction from Godfred Dame for Mr. Jakpa to implicate Ato Forson.
“Having listened to the conversation between [Richard Jakpa] and A-G, the allegation that A-G sought assistance to implicate [Ato Forson] was not borne out of the mouth of the A-G but [Richard Jakpa],” she said.
The judge after dismissing the application, however, advised Attorney-General Godfred Dame to recuse him from the ongoing case in the interest of justice and and the public.
The court also dismissed the application for mistrial filed by Ato Forson, Adu Asare further reported.
Lawyers for the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forsonfiled filed a supplementary affidavit in support of the motion on notice for an order of mistrial, injunction and or stay of proceedings in the ongoing ambulance case.
This followed the allegations made against Godfred Dame by Richard Jakpa.
The trending recording of a telephone conversation between Mr. Jakpa and Attorney-General Godfred Dame had been annexed to the affidavit.
Also, certain quotations contained in some media reports, particularly by Accra-based Asaase Radio that border on alleged professional misconduct on the part of the A-G, had been cited and annexed to the process.
Dr Ato Forson was requesting the honourable court to declare a mistrial in the interest of justice, which must not only be done but be manifestly seen to be done.
The Minority Leader averred that the Attorney-General had embarked on reprehensible and unlawful conduct, conduct unbecoming of an Attorney-General, let alone the Minister for justice, for the sole purpose of securing his conviction. And that, if the Court were to ignore these rather grave matters to proceed with the trial regardless, that would amount to a real travesty of justice, as the Court would have disregarded credible and cogent claims of misconduct by the Attorney General.
He argued that if a mistrial was not ordered and such blatant disregard for the rule of law and the ethics of prosecution by no mean a person than the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice was glossed over and allowed to pass without any consequences, public confidence in the administration of justice would be adversely affected.
But Godfred Dame opposed the application for mistrial stating it was unknown in the laws of Ghana.
“That no proper grounds have been canvassed by the applicant to warrant a grant of this application, which is unknown to the laws governing criminal law and practice in Ghana.
“That the instant application is a smokescreen and a veiled attempt by the applicant to abort his legitimate prosecution for actions committed as a public officer which led to the State losing colossal amounts of funds. Same is incompetent as no one has immunity from prosecution under the laws of Ghana.
“That I respectfully say that the Attorney-General is vested with the constitutional responsibility to prosecute all crimes within the Republic and cannot be prohibited from discharging this constitutional duty in respect of any person in Ghana as all persons are equal before the law,” he said in his affidavit in opposition to the motion filed by Ato Forson.
