Is The Attorney General Carriage To Appeal The Decision Of The Appealcourt At The Supreme Court Weighty Or Shucking And Jiving?

For the past two days, the ubiquitous issue surfacing on the landscape of Ghana is the Ambulance deal : a legal scuffle between the Attorney General and Ato Forson. The razzmatazz of this case unfurled after the Appeal Court avowed that, Ato Forson is the victor. After this legal tangle, the Attorney General department greeted to the verdict with their voracity to confront the decision enacted by the Appeal Court Judges, where they termed the verdict as ' perverse ', ' grossly unfair ' and ' erroneous '. The decree of the Appeal Court has gingered a specimen of the NDC enthusiasts to be in extreme vivacity. A mickle of hypothesis and creeds have been garnered from the legal au faits and other stakeholders who are apt to this situation.

The NDC fronts are venting that, it is futile to summon this case to the Supreme Court, since it won't change the adjudication of the Appeal Court. Justice Srem - Sai, a private legal practitioner phrased that, there would have been suffice substance should the Attorney General had sued the Ministry of Health instead, since that was the domain for the recipient of those items. Also, he emphasized that, the judges in their judgement ruled that, Richard Jakpa cannot be charged for causing financial loss to the state since he acted as an agent and many others.

I am here to provide overarching legal pedagogy as to why the Attorney General deportment to challenge this decision is telling.

Although, I am yet to imbibe the entire 125 paginated verdicts issued by the Court, but my stance is centered on the eyebrows and stereotypes ensued from this. Article 125 - 133 of the 1992 Constitution and the Court Acts, Act 459 as amended by Act 620 covers the respective composition and jurisdiction of our various Courts.

Article 129 empowers the Supreme Court to be the finest nexus of appeal and shall have appellate and jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution or any other law. In executing appeal cases, it doesn't follow the decision of any other Court. This connotes that, when the Attorney General lodges appeal to the Supreme Court, the verdict of the Appeal Court is rendered null and void.

In effect, a person files a petition for a certiorari where he/she deems the upshot to be having miscarriage of justice or legal errors in this case. A reasonable amount of Justices ought to endorse the petition for certiorari before your case could undergo a legal review on two grounds.

i) the case is of national importance or interest.

ii) you have a fitting rationale backing your assertion.

I am very bullish, the Attorney General will content with the above conditions. Therefore, it is constitutionally and legally bang on for the Attorney General to antagonize the decision of the Appeal Court at the Supreme Court unlike how the NDC and the legal shicers are gold bricking out there.

It is legally heretic and verboten for someone to evince that, since the Ambulances were purchased for the Ministry of Health and for that matter, they should have been responsible for the legal repercussions rather than the Ministry of Finance. After all, if Ato Forson issued over the odds budget to the Ministry of Health in hush, who should be upbraided here ?

Didn't Ato Forson release letters of credit to big sea only after he wrote to Bank of Ghana in August 2014 for €3.95 million for the purchase of 50 Ambulances ?

So, how do you criminate the Ministry of Health here, for, it was done in oblivion ; Ato Forson and Richard Jakpa, who was/is the local representative for big sea and the main company in Dubai must be implicated in this saga ideally.

Again, the Ministry of Finance can relay a number of equipments to a particular Ministerial office without having been in consonance with them for the required amounts of it, of which, the initial total amount of Ambulances to be given were 50, which they ended up sanctioning only 30 to them . Also, since Richard Jakpa acted as an agent doesn't mean, he should be impervious to prosecution. Didn't the Ministry of Health assign him to that position ? There is adequate proof from the said Ministerial headquarters affirming that, they gave him the discretion to exhibit that position.

In the Companies Act, 2009 ( Act 992 ), it articulates that ;

1) Except as provided in Section 139 of this code, the acts of an officer or agent of a company shall not be deemed to be acts of the company unless ;

a) The company, acting through its members in general meeting, boards of directors or managing director shall have expressly or impliedly authorized such officer or agent to act in the matter or

b) The company, acting under paragraph (a) has represented the officer or agent as having its authority to in the matter, in which event the company shall be civilly liable to a person who has entered into the transaction, in reliance on that representation, unless that person had actual knowledge that the officer or agent did not have authority or unless, having regard to the position with, or in relationship to, the company, that person ought to have known of the absence of the authority ( emphasis supplied ).

On the application of this section to the evidence on record, there is ample evidence, Mr. Richard Jakpa was expressly or impliedly authorized to act in the matter of this Ambulance transactions by the Ministry of Health, hence may need to be prosecuted for humbugging the state and causing monstrous financial loss to the state.

The Supreme Court has, of a plethora of occasions recanted the verdicts of the Appeal Court. The fresh of this transpired in June 2023, when it upheld an appeal by Ghana Telecommunication Company against a $16 million judgment by the Swedru High Court in a land dispute with Ogyeedom Obranu Kwasi Atta IV, Chief of Gomoa Afransie in 2017, which the appeal made to the Appeal Court on this same case in 2020 affirmed the High Court judgment _ the Supreme Court proved otherwise and granted Ghana Telecommunications Company with the victory accolade instead.

For the fact that, the Supreme Court is a behemoth Court, it would assess and digress this case holistically without any impressionistic orientation.

I am sanguine the Supreme Court would put strides on the approach at Common Law where Actio legis Aquiliae is prized.

This Country has been adulterated with corruptions, so we must rally behind the Attorney General in his quest to annihilate this canker from our terrain. I have maximum faith in Godfred Dame - Yeboah esq and Alfred Tuah - Yeboah esq that, they would prosecute their plans towards this case grandly.

By : Prof. Dinkum.
(The Buzzing Rapine of Erudition)
E - mail : [email protected]