Cecilia Dapaah Case: Chief Justice dismissal of OSP’s judge recusal petition apt says Poku-Adusei
Mr Poku-Adusei said the grounds upon which the OSP sought to get the Chief Justice to order Justice Twum to recuse himself were weak
Lawyer in private practice, Ralph Poku- Adusei has stated that the decision of the Chief Justice of the Republic, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, not to grant the petition of Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, for Justice Edward Twum to recuse himself from hearing any case involving the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and Ms Cecilia Abena Dapaah, is apt.
Speaking in an interview with Asaase News, on Wednesday, 25 October 203, Mr Poku-Adusei said the grounds upon which the Special Prosecutor sought to get the Chief Justice to order Justice Twum to recuse himself from hearing the applications the OSP has filed in court were weak and that, they do not meet the threshold set for a judge to be deemed bias for which reason, he or she would have to recuse him or herself from a pending case.
“I have keenly followed that development. What would be the basis for asking the Chief Justice to ask a judge to recuse him or herself from a case? You (the OSP) argue that the judge has exhibited signs of bias, but then before you can say that a judge is exhibiting any signs of bias, you must establish what interest that judge has in the matter” lawyer Ralph Poku-Adusei said.
“The OSP in their petition, what is the justification, what is the basis for saying that the judge is being biased? So, I think the Chief Justice is 100% right in her decision to reject the call for the judge to recuse himself from the case.
“Otherwise, we are getting into the arenas where if you don’t get your bidding in court, then you stand to accuse the judges. But you must, as a lawyer, understand that independence of the judiciary is paramount to your cause” he added.
Media frenzy
In submission, Ralph Poku-Adusei noted that the OSP as far as the Cecilia Dapaah case is concerned, appears to be pursuing the former minister of sanitation and water resources based on media publications and not as a result of thorough investigations as is required of the office.
To this end, Mr Poku-Adusei called on the OSP to retreat and to take immediate steps to conduct concrete investigations into the Cecilia Dapaah case and to come up with valid facts they can prove in court to establish wrongdoing on the part of the former minister.
“The [Office of the Special Prosecutor] is not looking at the core issues, to establish what offense has been committed [by madam Cecilia Dapaah] if any, but rather, [the OSP] is looking at what has been said in the media space. I feel that they must take their time, they may have a case, but they need to conduct thorough investigations into the matters before they consider any prosecution” Ralph Poku-Adusei stated.
“That is all that I have to tell them because you can’t just listen to the media and as it is, dumped into prosecution and then turn around to say that a judge is not doing your bidding and therefore the judge is biased. Clearly, that is what we have seen so far. It is not too late, they should take their time, visit the matter, do investigations into the matter, come up with facts they can prove in court, and then they can proceed” he further remarked.
Background
The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, on 12 October 2023, petitioned the Chief Justice, Gertrude Araba Sackey Torkornoo, for the judge hearing the lawsuit against Cecilia Dapaah, Justice Edward Twum, to recuse himself from the entire case.
Justice Twum announced the development on Thursday (12 October) when his court constituted to hear the OSP’s application to seize about US$590,000 it discovered in the home of the former sanitation minister after a search and also to freeze two bank accounts belonging to Dapaah.
According to the OSP, “the request was grounded on the OSP’s well-founded belief that Justice Edward Twum appears to be highly prejudiced against the OSP and the person of the Special Prosecutor”.
“Consequently, as it stands, the OSP would not and cannot be reasonably expected to be parties to proceedings before the said judge,” said the Special Prosecutor in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.
Reporting by Wilberforce Asare in Accra
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