No Bail For Tsatsu

THE WISH of Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to free himself from the grips of the law, yesterday proved futile when the Judge who jailed him, Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban, threw out his bail application.

Tsatsu, who filed his bail application last month after he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for causing financial loss to the State, told Mrs. Abban he would not proceed with his bail application because he had issues of bias against her which had been stayed by another court.

However, the Judge maintained that she had never been bias towards Tsatsu and was therefore not in any position to decline jurisdiction over his bail application, and ordered him to move his bail application but Tsatsu insisted she should not hear his application due to the bias allegation leveled against her.

Mr. Edward Agyeman Duodu, the Principal State Attorney in the case, prayed the court to strike out the application of Tsatsu since he was not ready to move it.

The trial Judge initially said she was adjourning the case sine die but struck it out a few minutes later, saying since he had refused to move his bail application it was deemed he was no longer interested in pursuing it.

The applicant, who has a judgment pending at the Supreme Court on whether the International Finance Corporation should be called to testify in his trial before he was jailed, wants that judgment arrested.

According to him once he had filed an application seeking the supervisory role of the Supreme Court to quash the judgment of Justice Abban, the IFC ruling should be arrested till the judgment of Mrs. Abban was decided.

He told the court on Tuesday that the trial Judge was arbitrary and capricious in her dealings with him when she went ahead to give judgment on the case, knowing very well that the Supreme Court was yet to give its verdict as to whether the IFC should be called to testify.

In addition, he wanted to move an application on the day he was jailed which was vital to his evidence but the Judge struck it out even before it could be heard, for want of prosecution, when the Attorney-General was not opposed to it.

Furthermore, he said Mrs. Justice Abban did not want to hear his application and yet asked him to move it by himself when his lawyer was out of jurisdiction, alleging that the trial Judge had already made up her mind to have him jailed and was therefore not ready to countenance anything which stood in her way.

In addition, Tsikata said the action of Justice Abban was an affront to the dignity of the Supreme Court which would have amounted to contempt if it had been any other case.

The applicant therefore prayed the Supreme Court to quash the judgment of the trial Judge to restore the dignity of the process to ensure that the desecration of justice was not repeated.

However, the Attorney-General (A-G) was of the opinion that the Judgment was fair since the trial Judge was not bound by any orders from the Supreme Court to stay proceedings.

He added that it was the Judge herself who decided to stay proceedings for two years to enable Tsatsu pursue the IFC matter at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court and since there was nothing binding her from proceeding with the judgment, she could not be said to have been capricious in her dealings in the trial of Tsatsu.

By Fidelia Achama