Assin North MP Trial Judge Caught Plagiarising Ruling From Wikipedia

Justice Kwasi Boakye of the Cape Coast High Court who recently annulled the Assin North parliamentary election has been exposed for copiously dubbing his ruling from the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia without crediting the source.

“The Judge must explain page 44 of his opinion as compared to the attached Wikipedia pages.” Demanded Us-based Ghanaians law professor, Prof Kweku Asare.

In his ruling, Justice Boakye argued that concerns that dual citizens in the process of relinquishing their citizenship do not become stateless. However, the content used to express that legal opinion was lifted verbatim from Wikipedia as though it was the construct of the judge.

This has sparked outrage among Ghanaians and on social media. They have promptly dubbed the judge, “Wikipedia Judge”.

Earlier this week, the ruling of Justice Boakye in the Cape Coast court swung the balance of power in the Parliamentary chamber in favour of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) which will now have a clear majority in the legislative chamber.

The Ghanaian parliament had hitherto been a hung parliament with both the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and ruling party having 137 seats each.

However, the ruling annulled the parliamentary seat occupied by the NDC’s Joe Gyaakye Quayson for contesting while still holding on to his Canadian citizenship.

The court was petitioned by some private citizens to overturn the constituency’s parliamentary seat on the basis of Quayson’s dual citizenship.

The petitioners argued that for Gyaakye Quayson to hold himself as the MP would be a complete violation of Article 94 (2a).

A by-election has already been activated to consolidate the substantive party to control the troubled Assin North seat. 

Handing his judgement on Wednesday, the judge said the MP, Joe Gyaakye Quayson violated constitutional provisions and other statutory provisions that guide Ghana’s elections.

The embattled Assin North MP argued that at the time of his nomination, he had already applied for the denunciation of his Canadian citizenship and that the delay in getting his certificate was purely administrative and arose out of the two-month lockdown from COVID-19.

The court rubbished his argument and proceeded to nullify the parliamentary election in the constituency.

However, Professor, Kwaku Asare and some legal luminaries noted that the Cape Coast Court erred in its judgment.

He described the ruling as a “misrepresentation on steroids”. According to Prof. Asare, natural-born Ghanaians owe an indivisible, indelible and permanent allegiance to Ghana.

“The judge must stay his ruling and refer the matter to the Supreme Court for interpretation,” Asare wrote on his social media platform.

Meanwhile, a livid Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu is accusing the court of opening themselves up for manipulation by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to slim down the edge the NDC has in the law-making chamber.