The Supreme Court has asked all owners of Accra-based Montie FM as well as two panelists of the station to reappear before it on July 18 to hear a contempt case against them.
Some of the defendants were in court to show reason why the court should not hold them in contempt for unsavory comments and death threats made by the two panelists on the station.
But when the court sat on the case today, only one of the owners of the station, Edward Addo, who is also a shareholder, showed up to represent the company in court, much to the chagrin of the judges.
The court did not understand why the other directors and owners of the radio station were not in court.
The judges would not listen to Nana Ato Dadzie, the counsel representing the owners of the company, that the owners were out of the jurisdiction.
The court demanded that the entire owners of Montie FM should have been in court since it is a corporate body.
The court’s instance on having all owners appear before it coupled with pleads from lawyers for the defendants to be allowed time to prepare and produce other owners compel the court to dismiss Edward Addo and adjourn sitting.
They owners are therefore expected to face the Supreme Court judges on Monday, July 18, 2016.
Early on, Chief Justice Theodora Wood and Justice Gbadegbe stepped down from the five member panel constituted to hear the case on grounds that their names were specifically mentioned by the two defendants.
Background
Two political communicators, Godwin Ako Gunn and Alistair Nelson were reported to have incited hatred against, and threatened to kill the Supreme Court judges over some orders to Ghana’s Electoral Commission, which they considered not to be in their favour.
The made those comments on Montie FM’s Pampaso hosted by Salifu Maase known as Mugabe.
The court last Tuesday cited the three for contempt consequent to which it on July 7 invited them to explain why they should not be “committed to prison for contempt of court, for scandalizing the court, defying and lowering the authority of the court, and bringing the authority of the court into disrepute”
Owners of the Accra-based radio station and the host of the programme on which the two contemnors issued the threats were also cited for contempt.
“I know where the judges live in Accra, I can show you. I know their quarters, the Supreme Court judges…. If they like, they should bring it on. It will start in their residences, I’m telling you, in their neighborhood. When we finish them, then it will be over. Then we will come and rule our nation because they don’t wish the nation well,” one of them is quoted to have said.
Although the BNI claimed after its “investigations” that the threats were empty because the defendants do not have the capability to carry out the threat, the Association of Judges and Magistrates held otherwise.
“The utterances tend to put fear in the judges and magistrates of Ghana who are vested with judicial under the constitution,” the Association said in a statement.
By 3news.com | Ghana
