Frank Davies slams High Court over OSP ruling
A lawyer with a direct stake in the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s ongoing cases has delivered a stinging rebuke of the Accra High Court’s decision to wade into the contentious question of the OSP’s prosecutorial authority, describing the speed at which the ruling was handed down as not just surprising, but constitutionally improper.
Frank Davies, a member of the legal team representing former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, did not mince words during an appearance on Joy FM’s MiddayNews on Thursday, expressing open disappointment at what he characterised as a rushed and jurisdictionally dubious intervention by a lower court on a matter that is already before the Supreme Court of Ghana.
“I’m a bit disappointed with what is going on. In the first place, I cannot get my mind to the hurried manner, or (I’m) tempted to say the indecent rate with which the higher court judge has dealt with this matter, much more so when the matter itself is pending before the Supreme Court,” he said.
At the heart of Davies’ objection is a well-established principle of judicial hierarchy, that when a constitutional question is already being considered by the Supreme Court, lower courts are expected to hold their hand until the apex court has spoken. To proceed otherwise, he argued, is to effectively usurp a function the Constitution reserves exclusively for the highest court in the land.
“When the matter is pending before the Supreme Court for adjudication of the Constitution, and that matter comes to a lower court, the relevant issue statement has been determination of the matter. The Supreme Court is the only court which has the mandate to interpret the Constitution. It is therefore surprising that a High Court would proceed to deal with the matter in this manner,” he said.
His comments come a day after Justice John Eugene Nyadu Nyante of the Accra High Court ruled, on the back of a quo warranto application filed by Peter Achibold Hyde, that the OSP does not possess independent constitutional authority to initiate criminal prosecutions. While affirming the office’s investigative mandate, the court held that prosecutorial power under Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution belongs exclusively to the Attorney-General, a determination that has effectively thrown several active OSP cases into uncertainty, with their future now hanging on further legal direction.
The OSP has already signalled its intention to challenge the ruling, arguing that the High Court itself lacked the jurisdiction to strike down provisions of an Act of Parliament, a power it insists belongs only to the Supreme Court. Davies’ remarks suggest that argument is likely to find sympathetic ears in legal circles, even among those who may disagree on the broader question of the OSP’s powers.
Source: myjoyonline.com
About The Author
