The Supreme Court of Ghana has forced former Deputy Attorney General, Dominic Ayine to apologise to the apex court and its justices for daring to claim that the posture of the seven-member Supreme Court panel sitting on the case shows a predetermined agenda to rule against the petitioner in the ongoing presidential election petition.
Ayine, last week told the press that he did not understand why the court dismissed Mr. Mahama’s application to reopen his case to enable them to subpoena the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, who had contentiously declared error-ridden presidential election results on December 9, 2020.
“…These are all germane issues under the laws of Ghana and to reduce the petition into a single issue petition is rather unfortunate, and it smacks of a predetermined agenda to rule against the petitioner in this matter,” Ayine said.
But Dr. Ayine was quickly cited for contempt for the utterance and was hauled for contempt on Monday, February 22, 2021.
He was rebuked thoroughly by the Chief Justice, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah and asked him to render an apology through the media. He was also ordered to write a formal letter of apology to cure his contempt.
“I have looked at what I said that day and I have come to the conclusion that I went overboard. I crossed the lines with respect to the remarks that I made in terms of attributing impropriety to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Ghana,” Dr. Ayine will later tell the press at the forecourt of the Supreme Court.
“This morning, I delivered a letter to His Lordship the Chief Justice, offering an unqualified apology to the court,” he added.
According to him, “When I finished addressing the press, [Frank Davies] walked up to me and reminded me that the phrased that I used had crossed the line and that is when I started thinking whether or not I crossed the line. I agree absolutely with Mr. Frank Davies…I want to unreservedly apologize to the court, that is the Supreme Court of Ghana as well as the Justices in particular who sat on that day. There was no intention on my part to impugn their integrity. I was just expressing a sentiment with respect to the ruling of that day.”