AG Dame wants Partisan Justice Honyenuga back on Opuni case

The Attorney-General (AG), Godfred Yeboah Dame has reportedly filed documents at the Supreme Court, urging it to set aside its judgment that hacked off Justice Clemence Honyenuga from continuing as the trial judge for the controversial legal suit against Dr. Stephen Opuni, the former Cocoa Board boss.

According to the AG, the decision by Ghana’s apex court contained fundamental errors of law which have manifestly resulted in miscarriage of justice, arguing that the decision to restrain the Judge was unfair.

Dr. Opuni, who was appointed under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, is standing trial for allegedly siphoning millions of dollars with two other alleged accomplices.

The trial judge, Justice Honeyenuga, who is also a chief in a town in the Volta Region, has been fingered for being biased and a partisan loyalist of the Akufo Addo administration.

Even though it was against his dual positions as a chief and a judge, in the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections, he mounted a public forum to endorse President Akufo Addo’s second term bid. 

He was forced to apologise for his faux pas during his Parliamentary vetting for his nomination to the Supreme Court Bench by President Akufo Addo. 

It is this orientation that lawyers of Dr. Opuni insist had manifested in the entire trial of the COCOBOD scandal. The lawyers say Justice Honyenuga had made comments in open court, and in his rulings that leave them in no doubt that their client will not get a fair hearing, particularly as an appointee of the erstwhile administration of the NDC.

Eventually, lawyers of the accused filed their objections of having that trial judge adjudicate the matter in the Supreme Court, asking Justice Honyenuga to recuse himself from the case for his perceived biases. 

The five-member panel of the apex Court in a three-two majority ruling, therefore, agreed to the call for the embattled judge’s recusal and prohibited from continuing with the case involving the former COCOBOD CEO.

The panel of five Supreme Court judges granted the request, for portions of the ruling on a submission of no case adjudicated by Justice Honyenuga, to be quashed.

The five-member Supreme Court panel included Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah Justices Jones Dotse, Sule Gbadegbe, Nene Amegatcher and Gertrude Torkornoo, dismissed the application for lacking merit and not supported by any fact.