By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday November 22, 2007
The Supreme Court will on December 21, decide on whether or not Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice CHRAJ could proceed to investigate an allegation with or without a complainant.
On October 30, the five-member panel chaired by Justice Georgina Wood, the Chief Justice, had ordered the Attorney-General, CHRAJ and Dr. Richard W. Anane, former Minister of Transportation as an interested party, to file written legal arguments on the issue of ‘complainant’, for the highest court of the land to decide whether or not there should have been a complainant before CHRAJ investigated Dr. Anane.
The court had unanimously ruled that an Accra Fast Track High Court did not err when it quashed a ruling by CHRAJ which cited Dr. Anane for conflict of interest and perjury.
It had also granted a certiorari by CHRAJ against the High Court’s decision to interpret ‘Complainat’ in Article 218(a) of the 1992 Constitution in favour of Dr. Anane and held that the issue of whether or not there should have been an identifiable complainant before CHRAJ proceeded to investigate Dr. Anane fell under Article 130 of the Constitution which was an exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court which the High Court was not permitted to handle.
Other Justices on the panel were S.A. Brobbey, Dr. S.K. Date-Bah, Julius Ansah and R.T. Aninakwah.
On March 13, the Fast Track Court, presided over by Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, ruled that CHRAJ was wrong in recommending that Dr. Anane, be relieved of his post and quashed the commision’s recommendation that the then applicant be relieved of his position as a Minister of State because he had "brought his power and office into disrepute" after it cited him for perjury, conflict of interest as well as abuse of power and office.
CHRAJ made the recommendations on September 15, last year and further asked Dr. Anane to apologise to the Appointments Committee of Parliament that approved his appointment as a Minister, for lying under oath.
The decisions were reached by the Commission after an 18-month investigation into allegations of corruption, conflict of interest and abuse of power levelled against the former Minister in his dealings with Ms. Alexandria O’Brien, an American with whom Dr. Anane has a child.
Dr. Anane had sought a declaration that the investigation by CHRAJ was "riddled with an irregularity" and a further declaration that there should have been a formal complaint lodged by an identifiable complainant before going ahead to investigate him.
Dr. Anane also prayed the court that another declaration that cited him for perjury was an error and an order of certiorari to quash the commission’s decision.
Dissatisfied with the ruling CHRAJ filed an appeal at the Supreme Court for a certiorari to quash the ruling of the High Court.
Nene Amegatcher, counsel for CHRAJ was the first to make his arguments, insisting that the commission could carry out investigations or initiate its own investigations when there has not been any formal complaint.
He said under Article 230 CHRAJ has the power to investigate compaints as well as investigate allegations that had not been brought before the commission.
But J.K. Agyemang, counsel for Dr. Anane, disagreed saying there should have been an identifiable complainant before CHRAJ set out to investigate his client.
He said Article 218 of the Constitution spelled out the functions of CHRAJ and the commission which he described as an 'inferior body' could not go beyond its jurisdiction to do the investigations.
'The allegations that CHRAJ can investigate when there is no complainant lodged is not true.There should be a complaint and there should be a cause for it'.
When Mr. Joe Ghartey, the Attorney-General took his turn he said 'I would like to focus mainly on how the subject matter relates to public policy', and urged the court to consider the literary meaning of 'complaint' in its interpretation.
He supported Mr. Agyemeng's arguments that there should be a complainant before CHRAJ could investigate saying 'unless there is a complaint CHRAJ cannot go out to investigate an allegation'.
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