Subin Lawmaker Eugene Boakye Antwi, NPP Party Executives Cited For Contempt

Fifty-one disgruntled delegates of the Subin constituency have filed a motion on notice to move a Kumasi High Court on July 21, 2020, for an order for committal for contempt against the electoral Commission (Ashanti), the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP as well as the Member of Parliament for Subin, Eugene Boakye Antwi.

Other respondents are Patrick Acheampong, Ashanti Regional Director of Research and Election, the Subin constituency chairman Michael Adusei Bonsu and his Secretary Akuamoah Boateng.

The action filed before the court last Friday, July 3, 2020, is for alleged contemptuous and deliberate acts and conduct calculated by the respondents to bring the administration of justice and authority and dignity of the court into irreparable ridicule, contempt, and public ridicule.

The respondents are said to have organized the primary at the Subin constituency on June 20, 2020, with the full knowledge of a legal suit instituted by the applicants on June 18, 2020, against the conduct of the polls.

The suit sought a declaration that the unilateral indefinite suspension of the plaintiffs by the defendants with the intention to disenfranchise them in the June 20 polls is illegal, unlawful, and wrongful.

It was followed with a motion to restrain the EC, NPP National, and Ashanti) and the constituency chairman and the secretary which was granted by the court.

On June 19, 2020, the Kumasi High Court presided over by Justice Ali Baba Abature ordered restrained the defendants from holding the NPP Subin Constituency parliamentary elections for the next 10 days but the party and defendants disregarded the ban and conducted the polls.

In a 22-point affidavit in support of the applicant for committal for contempt, Isaac Nimako, the first plaintiff applicant and deponent on behalf of the 50 other applicants averred that on June 18, 2020, instituted an against the EC, the constituency chairman, and the secretary.

It was explained that the EC complied with the restraining orders by the court but the lawmaker of Subin (third defendant) indicated that injunction or not there would be an election even when the EC had drawn the attention of the defendants to the injunction.

According to the deponent, with the exception of the EC, the defendants openly declared that since evaded personal service of the injunction order, they would contemptuously go ahead with the conduct of the primary and showed themselves to be persons above the law and therefore not law-abiding citizens and have therefore brought the administration of justice into disrepute since they were in full knowledge of a valid court order.

The affidavit stressed that the defendants intentionally, knowingly, deliberately and willfully perpetrated the illegal and unlawful act of contempt to bring the unquestioned and awesome authority of the court in contempt.

The plaintiff applicant believed that the grant of the application for committal of the defendants for contempt will enforce the essence of establishing courts of law and also serve notice that persons, individuals, and organisations cannot choose when to treat the orders of a law court with disrespect.

The deponent also believed that committing the defendants to contempt would be an indication that the court would not support and give legality to their contemptuous acts.