Woyome to refund GhȻ51.2million: Some reasons for the Supreme Court's ruling
Reversing its earlier decision which declined jurisdiction on whether or not to order Woyome to refund the money, the Supreme court held that it was without doubt its earlier decision would have amounted to “completely shutting the door on the applicant in so far as he seeks to exercise his constitutional rights as a public spirited person and or citizen vigilante in the Supreme Court”.
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“Secondly, it is also important for this court to consider the effect of its decision in this case in the interpretation it has given Article 181 (5) of the Constitution 1992, especially as it affected the CAN 2008 Stadia Agreements dated 26th April 2006. Once the invalidity of these agreements have been pronounced, declaring them unconstitutional and therefore null, void and of no effect, this court should have proceeded further to complete all the pending businesses before it. This is all part of the principle of judicial economy that Prof. Ocran JSC of blessed memory referred to in Hanna Assi (No.2) already referred to,” the court held.
Real Danger and Closure
“As matters stand now, there is a real danger, that a High Court which is the appropriate forum that this court referred to may itself give a contrary and conflicting decision quite apart from what this court has given,” the court held.
According to the court, the review application was to provide the court a level playing field to “give one harmonious judgement for all the persons connected with this April 26, 2006 CAN 2008 Stadia Agreements and other related matters to know their positions and bring everything to closure”.
It further noted that the Supreme Court was the court of last resort for all and for that reason it must not only ensure that there was substantial justice for all but see to it that it was applied to all and added, “The tendency where state resources are allowed to be dissipated must be brought to an end.”
Pace of suits
Touching on cases pending against Woyome at the lower courts, Justice Dotse said, “The pace of those suits are nothing to write home about, such that a zealous and public spirited person like the applicant be made to tie his fortunes to such a snail pace driven suit. This will be denying him his rights which he seeks for the public.”
Siphoning of state funds
The court held that the review application should be a medium to resist any attempt to “use this court as a conduit by which any acts of unconstitutionality in the siphoning of public funds will be given a semblance of authority and judicial blessing. The Supreme Court must at all times prevent a total failure of justice”.
“Taking all the above factors into consideration, it does appear to us sufficiently clear that by the inadvertence, unwittiningness, patently mistaken, etc of the ordinary bench in abdicating jurisdiction and directing the applicant to the appropriate forum, an error has been committed and this by our estimation has resulted into miscarriage of justice. This, according to the authorities, can be remedied by the review jurisdiction. We will thus on this ground as well allow the review jurisdiction,” the court stated.
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It concluded its judgement by referring to Dr S.Y. Bimpong Buta’s article in the Review of Ghana Law. Page 210 already referred to as follows:
“However, if the review jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is to serve as a genuine procedural mechanism which enables our Supreme Court to correct and reverse a basic and fundamental error inadvertently committed, then their lordships in the Supreme Court must (with the utmost respect) be prepared to admit that such a mistake had been made and graciously correct it when the golden opportunity offers itself as was the case in Ababio v Mensah, Supreme Court, 16th July, 1989; digested in [1989-90] GLRD 60.”
“We endorse the above statement and state that the review jurisdiction must serve as a genuine and real procedural mechanism which should sparingly be used to correct and reverse basic errors inadvertently or unwittingly committed by the ordinary bench to prevent total failure of justice such as the instant case.”