Supreme Court to determine Akwatia MP’s fate April 30

The Supreme Court will on Wednesday, April 30 this year, decide whether or not to quash the Koforidua High Court’s decision to injunct the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Akwatia, Ernest Yaw Kumi, from holding himself as an MP and a contempt against him. 

This comes after lawyers for Mr Kumi and the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Henry Boakye Yiadom, wound up their arguments for and against the matter.

Mr Kumi’s counsel, Gary Nimako Marfo, argued that the High Court judge committed an error of law when he proceeded to injunct the MP-elect in the absence of a gazette notification.

He argued that the High Court judge erred when he allowed counsel for Mr Yiadom to read a news article on his phone which said the results of 274 constituencies, including Akwatia, had been gazetted by the Electoral Commission (EC).

He said the High Court was a court of records, hence in the absence of the gazette notification, the lawyer’s reliance on the news story was not made under oath so the court could not have relied on it to make a determination against his client.

Mr Marfo also argued that the High Court ignored all the certiorari applications filed before the Supreme Court as well as applications before the trial court to stay proceedings, as well as halt its ruling on the contempt of court, and went ahead to convict his client.

Again, Mr Marfo told the court that the High Court judge should have ceased the hearing of the substantive matter and dealt with the application challenging its jurisdiction before proceeding.

Opposed

However, counsel for Mr Yiadom, Bernard Bediako Baidoo, disagreed with that submission.

He argued that there was no rule which stated that a hard copy of the gazette notification must be presented to the court before it could deal with the case.

On ignoring the certiorari, Mr Baidoo argued that the mere filing of those applications did not operate as an automatic stay of proceedings, hence the judge was right to have proceeded.

On ceasing the hearing, Mr Yiadom, told the apex court that the High Court had actually determined the issue of jurisdiction before proceeding to hear the contempt application.

Justin Amenuvor, counsel for the EC, which is an interested party to the application, told the court that the High Court was a court of records and the affidavit in support of the application stated that at the time the court made its decision, there was no record before it as to the gazette notification, and that has not been contested by Mr Yiadom.

Background

On January 3, 2025, the court issued an interim injunction preventing Kumi’s swearing-in.

This followed a lawsuit filed by Henry Boakye-Yiadom, the NDC parliamentary candidate and former MP, against the EC, Kumi and the Clerk to Parliament.

The lawsuit challenged the election results which declared Kumi the winner with 19,269 votes against Boakye-Yiadom’s 17,206 votes.

Despite the injunction, Kumi proceeded to be sworn in on January 7, 2025.

In an earlier ruling in January, the court dismissed an application by Kumi’s legal team, led by Mr Nimako, seeking to set aside the interim injunction.

In February this year, the court issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Mr Kumi, after finding him guilty of contempt

Specifically, Justice Amedahe issued the order after it considered that the MP defied an injunction barring him from being sworn in as MP for the area on January 7, 2025.