Barker-Vormawor to challenge GH¢5.1m defamation judgment

Legal practitioner and activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor has signalled plans to challenge a High Court ruling ordering him to pay GH¢5.1 million in damages and costs to former National Security Minister Albert Kan Dapaah, insisting the process that led to the judgment was flawed.

Reacting in a Facebook post after the March 2 decision, Barker-Vormawor said he would move to have the ruling set aside. “Of course we will seek to set it aside. But he can take his victory lap,” he wrote.

The High Court in Accra awarded GH¢5 million in general damages to Kan Dapaah for defamation and imposed GH¢100,000 in costs. Justice (Rev.) Joseph Owusu Adu-Agyeman granted the former minister’s reliefs but reduced the initial GH¢10 million claim by half.

Kan Dapaah sued over allegations by Barker-Vormawor that he and other officials had offered him money to halt his activism. The court struck out the activist’s Statement of Defence before judgment, after dismissing an application to relist it as alien to the rules.

Barker-Vormawor maintains that his new lawyer was denied time to file a witness statement after his previous counsel took up a public appointment. “He missed Court one day, and when we got the record, the judge had struck out my defense and given a date to give judgement,” he wrote.

He added: “We filed a motion to relist the defense and filed my witness statement and that of my other witness. We also filed a motion to arrest judgment. Judge refused it. Went ahead to give Kan Dapaah judgment.”

“You can read my witness statement; that the court refused to consider if you want!” he stated.