SAMMY AWUKU BANNED FROM SUPREME COURT

Sammy Awuku

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Supreme Court yesterday slapped a ban on Sammy Awuku, a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communication Team from attending the proceedings of the ongoing Presidential Election Petition.

The Justices said the NPP man had made comments on Peace FM and the comments were deemed scandalous to the highest court.

The nine-member panel therefore invited Mr. Awuku to the courtroom to explain his comments and after a back-and-forth debate, ordered the NPP man to retract the comment on the radio station by 6pm yesterday, which he accordingly did.

Apology

At the time of going to press, Mr. Awuku had retracted the said comments and rendered unqualified apology to the court on numerous radio stations including Peace FM.

The issue came up yesterday in the morning when the court hearing the petition challenging the validity of the Electoral Commission (EC) declaration of John Dramani Mahama as President in December 2012 resumed after a one-day break.

“Before we proceed, we wish to deal with a few matters. The first one is about this reportage; in the last ruling, it was unanimous against the issuance of the softcopy, Justice William Atuguba, chairman of the panel said.

“I have been informed by my colleagues that some carried it the other way, saying that the decision on the softcopy issue was 7 to 2, that’s a complete misrepresentation, however, it appears that the way the ruling was delivered might involve difficulties in technically separating out the two matters, so we don’t intend to be hard on that,” the judge conceded.

“Nonetheless, it is not such an innocent matter because we said long ago, court proceedings are technical, if you don’t understand, accost a lawyer and get the proper explanation,” he added.

DAILY GUIDE Again

Holding a copy of DAILY GUIDE, Justice Atuguba for the second time said the private newspaper had done what the court did not like.

“I hold DAILY GUIDE, I was supposed to have gone wild, there is an insinuation there that it was singled out…well, we do not want to be too hard on these matters. We are judges, a judge and wildness…I don’t know if they would be prepared to receive a wild sentence. We are not wild, if we are wild, we would react wildly to this type of thing, I mean use decent language. You want to sell your paper etc, but you know decency is important.”

Sammy Awuku

The court then expressed grave concern about a statement Mr. Awuku is supposed to have made on radio about the case and sought to find out if he was in the courtroom but he was absent.

“Then when we issued our final touchline warning, on Monday, since then, it has come to our notice that Mr. Sam Awuku…that he reacted to that statement in a certain way. Is he here?”

Realising he was not available, Justice Atuguba said “we would deal with this matter in due cause, because we have issued final warnings.”

“We explained the powers vested in us by the State, but some people seem to be above them. Our worry is that these things…it has some detrimental effect on the ordinary people, they rely on the leaders for information about important matters…Kenya, we saw what happened, when confidence was lost in the judiciary, thousands of lives [were lost] we cannot sit here and allow that”

Justice Atuguba then signaled the legal teams to present the menu for the day before he came back to say that “The touchline we issued last Monday covers everybody in this country, from the President down to anybody. Everybody is covered, everybody. We want to make that clear that the coverage area of our warning.”

Enter Sammy Awuku

The court proceeded to hear the petitioners application to produce documents in respect of collation forms for 13 constituencies before lunch break and after the court resumed, Mr. Awuku had apparently come to turn himself in after the observation from the Presiding judge…

Justice Atuguba: Are you the one? (Referring to Sammy Awuku when he stood up to present himself to the court)

Mr. Awuku: Yes, I decided to produce myself.

Justice Atuguba: Then do so properly, come fully to the front…(Mr. Awuku moves to the front) You said you have tendered yourself?

Mr. Awuku: Yes my lords.

Justice Atuguba: For what purpose have you tendered yourself?

Mr. Awuku: My lords, I offer an unconditional apology and withdraw the comments and the choice of words that were used which might have embarrassed the court, or embarrassed your lordships on that said programme yesterday.

Justice Atuguba: What did you say on that programme?

Mr. Awuku: On that programme, tempers flared up; it was a political discussion and my colleague from the NDC made a comment that did infuriate me. That is no justification to have followed suit to have embarrassed the court, though he did indicate that all these things that we are going to court for would amount to nothing. I got infuriated and I said when these comments come, and orders from the court do not cover that, then it is selective. But then, upon sober reflection, I withdraw those words and those comments unreservedly. My lords, if I happen to have that same opportunity next week Tuesday on Peace FM, I’m sure I will take the opportunity also to offer the same [apology].

Justice Atuguba: Did you disclose what you said in anger or whatever to your NDC colleague?

Mr. Awuku: Yes I did, I told him that such comments are not helpful and undermines the administration of justice.

Justice Atuguba: Is that all you said.

Mr. Awuku: That was my reaction to him, my lords.

Justice Atuguba: Are you sure that if those were your remarks, they are inappropriate apologizing here [in the Supreme Court]?

Mr. Awuku: My lords, I earlier on said the choice of words out of anger, describing the order as being selective, that is what I withdraw unconditionally and apologize to your lordship. 

Justices Sulley Gbadegbe and Jones Doste at a point cut in to ask Mr. Awuku some questions.

Justice Atuguba: You said if you get the same opportunity [to apologize]?

Mr. Awuku: Yes my lords.

Justice Atuguba: What opportunity would you be looking for; because it is that programme [on Peace FM] that was your opportunity for the utterance of these things you are quite sure that the same thing would be there on Tuesday…?

Mr. Awuku: My lords, I mean by the same opportunity, I mean if I get to represent my party again next week Tuesday, I will repeat the apology.

Justice Atuguba: And if you don’t?

Mr. Awuku: If I don’t, but I’m hoping I will, but if I don’t, any opportunity that I do get, I will speak to them.

Justice Atuguba: Is it out of your power to get that opportunity?

Mr. Awuku: As the deputy director of communication of my party, I work with the media houses and when we do have issues to clarify, they [the media houses] work hand-in-hand with the political parties.

Justice Atuguba: We are not forcing you to do anything, but we want to be clear about what you are undertaking to do. You are saying that if you get the chance, you would repeat the withdrawal of those comments?

Mr. Awuku: Yes My lords…I have declined commentary on the matter the whole of this afternoon; I wanted to appear before your lordships first. So afterwards, I’m sure Peace FM has representatives here and the rest of the media, so my lords, I can take the opportunity to do that….I commit myself to speak on that [radio] network and repeat the same apology there.

The Interventions

 Justice Atuguba then asked the counsel for both petitioners and respondents if they had any comments before the court made a ruling.

Philip Addison: My lords, I believe Mr. Awuku has expressed his remorse at the words that he used; we have already met your lordships in Chambers to also add our voice to it that you temper Justice with mercy. He has appeared here publicly to render an apology; I think it should serve as a warning to others because I do not think that really, I can lead anybody again into Chambers on a similar matter. I would like to thank my colleagues for joining me in coming to see your lordships in Chambers.

Mr. Tsikata: My lords, respectfully, I would like to associate myself with my learned friend’s remarks that you temper justice with mercy. I believe that the objectives that you’ve set out, your earlier indication are quite clear; your lordships are here upholding the integrity of the judicial system and the whole State, and I believe that those indications have gone down publicly and clearly. 

I think that your lordships may take into account the fact that Mr. Awuku did offer himself to come to court, and he has rendered an unqualified apology and I believe that it’s appropriate that your lordships do temper justice with mercy…I think the example would be clear to the whole country like your lordships said; from the President to everybody else.

Tony Lithur and James Quarshie-Idun also expressed similar sentiments.

The ruling

Justice Atuguba: We have considered the candid admission of Mr. Sammy Awuku’s utterances on Peace FM on the 25^th day of June 2013 in reaction to the final warning of this court with regard to improper reportage and the previous warnings of this court, concerning contemptuous comments, utterances and altitudes towards this apex court of Ghana issued just on the 24^th day of June 2013.

He has apologized and withdrawn the same before this court and has further undertaken to repeat the retraction by 6pm today. We have also considered with admiration on the pleas put in on his behalf both in Chambers and in open court by lead counsel for the parties on both sides of this case.

We have however, noted with great concern, the steady decline of respect for the authority of the judiciary; the third arm of government of this country over the past years. It appears that the warnings of this court, particularly that of the 24^th day of June 2013, have not been taken seriously.

It is quite apparent that the pompous show of private power in the pursuit of the right to engage in political organization and activities by which the passions of the humble members of society are stirred up on deliberately false political propaganda is a recipe for chaos and conflict in this country.

Kenyan Scenario

We have seen the Kenyan precedent in this context, and much as we are concerned not to exercise our undoubted powers in the court of law with iron fist, we cannot allow the emergence of over-mighty subjects in this country as we said on the 24^th day of June 2013, however, in order to show that we mean well for this country, with regard with the exercise of our awesome powers, we have decided to stop short of invoking our powers of contempt and we invoke, in the alternative, our power to control the attendance of our proceedings as a public court by members of the public, we take judicial notice of the fact that Mr. Sammy Awuku has been attending the proceedings of this court in this ongoing case, we think the exclusion of Mr. Sammy Awuku from attending the proceedings of this court for the rest of the duration of this case should suffice for a start in this direction.