Supreme Court throws out Gifty Oware's application seeking to halt her trial
The Supreme Court has dismissed an application seeking to temporarily stop the High Court from hearing the case of former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority, Gifty Oware-Mensah.
She is standing trial for allegedly causing financial loss of more than GH¢38 million to the state.
The application, filed by her lawyer, Gary Nimako Marfo, was seeking to halt the trial at the High Court until the apex court determines the constitutionality of a practice direction that served as the basis for the trial at the High Court to order the accused to file names and addresses of witnesses' statements, if any, at the Case Management Conference.
In a ruling today (May 19, 2026) the five-member panel, which had Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie as the President, held that assuming the accused wanted to test the constitutionality of the practice direction, the trial at the High Court could still proceed.
"We are of the view that, having reviewed the processes so far, the application for stay does not meet the threshold for stay of proceedings.
"The applicant may choose to pursue the interpretation of the practice direction but the trial at the High court may still go on," Chief Justice Baffoe-Bonnie stated.
Background
In October 2025, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, charged Oware-Mensah for allegedly generating 9,934 ghost names on the NSA Central Management System.
The prosecution alleges that she subsequently took control of Blocks of Life Consult Limited by making her mother’s driver one of the company’s directors and presented the company to ADB. She reportedly explained to the bank that she had supplied goods on hire-purchase to the 9,934 ghost names and intended to use their allowances as collateral to secure a facility.
According to the prosecution, the scheme allegedly enabled her to fraudulently obtain GH¢38,458,248.87 from the bank through source deductions from the allowances of the 9,934 non-existent names over an 11-month period.
She has been charged with five counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state, using public office for profit and money laundering.
Oware-Mensah has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been admitted to bail by the High Court presided over by Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay.
During a case management conference, the trial court directed the accused person to file the list of defence witnesses and their addresses.
Her lawyers contend that the order for her to file the list of defence witnesses and their addresses was inconsistent with Article 19(2)(c) of the 1992 Constitution, the provision that presumes anyone charged with a criminal offence is innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Practice directions
Practice directions are not part of the laws of Ghana but form part of the administration of justice.
The Practice Direction Disclosure and Case Management in Criminal Proceedings 2018, which was developed in 2018 and signed by the former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, governs criminal trials to ensure expeditious trials and proper management of cases.
Specifically, 2(3) (a) compels an accused person to disclose the names and addresses of all witnesses he or she intends to call at the case management stage.
It states, “Without prejudice to the constitutional presumption of the innocence of the Accused person, the Accused person shall, for purposes of case management, disclose the names and addresses of all witnesses he expects to call, should the Court call upon him to enter into his defence at the close of the case for the Prosecution”.
It is this portion that the accused, through her lawyer, Gary Nimako Marfo, is challenging.
It is based on this that the accused was praying the court to refer the issue raised to the Supreme Court for interpretation.
However, the trial judge dismissed the application to refer the case to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the accused failed to demonstrate the need for interpretation to warrant a stay of proceedings.
Attempts to halt the trial at the High Court has failed with the Supreme Court's latest decision climaxing the accused person's available options to halt the trial.
