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28.06.2008 News

Tsatsu’s trial

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Tsatsus trial
28.06.2008 LISTEN

The trial and conviction of Tsatsu sikata, the former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) for willfully causing financial loss to the state will be the talk of people for years to come.

The law as it is being applied has generated highly politicised debates that expose wide cracks of divisions in our society. Even the arguments of legal luminaries clearly betray their political affiliations.

As for laymen, our contributions as sampled on the FM stations and from some tabloids are laughably simplistic and biased. Even legal luminaries clearly betray their political affiliations in this matter.

Putting all emotions aside I, a layman, am amazed by the rough parallels that exist between the Tsatsu trial and the rather lengthy trial of the Apostle Paul as chronicled in the Acts of the Apostles, the part of the New Testament of the Bible where can be found examples of conflicts between Roman and Jewish laws.

Paul was arrested in Jerusalem and brought before the magistrate on a charge that might be set elegantly in the manner of languages at that time as, "Willfully acting in a manner that would incite his followers to disturb the peace."

The magistrate was about to set the police upon him to beat him and throw him into jail when Paul declared that his right as a Roman citizen entitled him to be heard before sentencing. The magistrate set him free pending the trial.

The chief priests protested to the Roman Governor, Festus, who responded, "It is not the Roman custom to hand over any man before he has faced his accusers and has had the opportunity to defend himself."

According to the narration, Paul asserted yet another legal prerogative when he appealed directly to Rome. That left him free for a few years to pursue his daily pastoral activities till he was summoned to Rome for the trial. The New Testament account ended there but some oral traditions say that he was found guilty and fed to the lions.

Some scholars say that he was decapitated and others insist he was set free because he had no case to answer. Throughout his appearances before the courts in Jerusalem, Caesarea and Rome, Paul had invoked the various provisions of the Roman law.

He first challenged the authority of the Sanhedrin to try him. Later, when he was to be transferred back to Jerusalem, he pointed out that at Caesarea he was already directly under the jurisdiction of Rome and therefore insisted that King Agrippa sent him to Rome to be tried by the court of the Emperor, the highest legal authority.

The proceedings of Tsatsu's trial took six years before judgment, within which time there were a number of twists. The Fast Track High Court was pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and it took a judicial review to reverse this ruling.

Our judicial system, full of principles and safeguards dating hack to Roman law, can and must be trusted. In the Tsatsu case, our system allowed him to invoke every provision to assert his rights. But the question is this: In ancient Rome at the trial of Paul, there were deep divisions based on religious beliefs. Would a judge who happened to be a non-Christian apply the law fairly to Paul?

There were other parallels of court room antics credited to Cicero, an eminent Defence Attorney during criminal trials, one of which was applied in the reverse during most Fast Track trials of political figures.

It is called ad misericordiam when Cicero would parade the dirty, ragged wife of the accused and her equally hungry-looking and ragged children before the jury box and encourage them to cry throughout the proceedings to elicit mercy.

In the case of our Fast Track trials, sympathisers of the accused, clad in red cloth, stand behind the court fence and sing war songs. Instead of pleading for mercy, they rather intimidate the judge.

In Tsatsu's case it did not end there. No sooner was judgement delivered than reverse ad misericordiam was invoked again. The law court was jammed with sympathisers and some of the demeanours shown were nothing less than menacing. I believe that in ancient Rome some believers in the Christian faith behaved the same way during the trial of Paul.

I found another interesting Ciceronian trick; the praeteritio, a word derived from the Latin verb, "to ignore." This was displayed by a member on a local TV discussion programme held on Thursday, June 19, 2008.

One of the two panelists who spoke strongly in favour of Tsatsu's conviction said something to this effect: "I am going to restrict myself to my understanding of the law. I am not going to discuss the character of Tsatsu. He is a great legal brain and a good friend: My heart goes out to him and his family ... But he was running a one man show at GNPC and has landed himself in this ... " Then he proceeded to present the salient points of the case.

If Cicero were alive and practicing in a Ghanaian court today as Tsatsu's counsel he might say something like, "I will focus on my client's innocence today, and thus I will completely ignore the accuser (the Attorney-General) is a dishonourable, vindictive lawyer who cheats his clients of insurance claims, goes after other people's wives ... "

He would have mauled the prosecutor and made him look like a monster in the eyes of the judge. This is a figment of my imagination in view of some of the exchanges that occurred between the prosecutors and the judge on one side, and Tsatsu and his counsel on the other, ancient Rome was truly re-enacted.

What else have we learnt from the Tsatsu trial and other trials of its nature? All who have been tried under this law say it should stay in the statute books. So have all the leading politicians.

It appears however that what is on the minds of some of these politicians is retribution: "You whip me today, I have my turn tomorrow." Some legal brains say that this law is dangerous because its application can be whimsical. Thus, many have taken to subjecting it to their own interpretation.

This was the case in ancient Caesarea when Governor Festus wrongly explained Paul's situation to his boss King Agrippa that "the matter concerns a certain dead Jesus whom this man claims is still alive." He completely misinformed his boss out of his ignorance of Jewish laws.

Businessmen I have spoken to would soon not see this law in the books. They fear that its continued existence could restrict initiative and calculated risk-taking.

The law makes it easy to haul any chief executive of a failed economic venture to court for causing financial loss to the state. It does not matter that the chief executive reports to a board.

If GNPC had a worthy board, not an effete one, how could this board say that her chief executive single-handedly committed the organisation to a project of Valley View Farm's size outside its core business?

Business Executives further point out that in corporate practice, there are sanctions prescribed for directors who act fraudulently and negligently in their financial and fiduciary duties. Thus there is no need for this law.

I have heard Ayensu Starch Company mentioned several times as a monumental waste of the country's money. People say that this venture, being the President's baby, presents a loaded gun to his head. They draw swift parallels and analogies of this venture to the Quality Grain and the Valley View Farm. They point to other examples as well.

The debate is not about to end soon and Tsatsu may continue seeking reliefs but shouldn't a recourse to ad misericordiam be used properly this time, not in the law courts, but at the Castle?

Tsatsu's conviction is creating divisions between Ghanaians as Paul's trial did between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We wish to plead that the President, as an act of mercy, dips into his very large heart and grant Tsatsu pardon. This one more mercy we ask of you, Mr President.

Author: Joe Frazier
Source: My Blog/Daily Graphic

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