Ambulance case: State abusing its prosecutorial powers – Ato Forson’s lawyers to court

The prosecution of Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority Leader, amounts to abuse of prosecutorial powers, lawyers for the Minority Leader have alleged.

In their legal submission to the court on a submission of no case to answer the lawyers argued that the State was acting like a Leviathan, which has no regard for the rights and liberties of its citizens.

In a detailed legal submission to the court to explain why the trial must end the lawyers raised a number of arguments for the consideration of the court

“We maintain that, in a reasoned decision, a court has a duty to clearly set out the legal principles and the evidence upon which the decision is based.

“In addition, an adversarial system like ours, where the role of the court is primarily that of an umpire, places an additional duty on the Court to explain why it prefers one piece of evidence or argument to the other after carefully weighing the evidence relied on by the prosecution and the defence,” excerpts of their legal submission stated.

They also rejected the allegations by the state that Dr Ato Forson authorised or caused letters of credit to be established.

According to the lawyers, this claim is patently false.

The Minority Leader’s lawyers argued that the prosecution failed to adduce sufficient evidence to back this charge.

“We submit that, to the extent that the evidence on record does not support but contradict these material allegations in the particulars of offences for Counts 1 and 5, the prosecution has failed to adduce sufficient evidence on key ingredients of the offences in Counts 1 and 5. Consequently, A1 must be acquitted and discharged.“

Contrary to the assertions in the particulars of the offence of Counts 1 and 5 that AI ‘authorized’ or ‘caused’ irrevocable letters of credit to be established it is clear from the evidence on record that AI never ‘authorized’ or ‘caused irrevocable’ letters of credit to be established nor did AI act in any manner without due cause and authorization.

“Exhibits A and B1, which bear the signature of AI were transmitted to the Bank of Ghana under the authority of and on behalf of the Minister of Finance as confirmed by Exhibit 5 for A1…That claim is patently false.”

Meanwhile, the court has set March 30, to rule on the submission of no case.