Attorney General Appeals To Quash Decision To Start Opuni-Agongo’s Case Afresh
Attorney General, Godfred Dame, has requested the Court of Appeal to quash a High Court’s decision to re-start Opuni-Agongo’s COCOBOD trial.
It will be recalled that Justice Gyimah took over the five-year-old case following the retirement of Supreme Court judge Clemence Honyenuga, who had heard the matter since 2018.
Dr. Stephen Opuni, ex-CEO of the Ghana Cocoa Board; businessman Seidu Agongo and his company Agricult Ghana Limited, are facing 27 charges, including willfully causing financial loss to the state and contravention of the Public Procurement Act in the purchase of Lithovit liquid fertiliser between 2014 and 2016.
According to Justice Gyimah, the allegations of unfairness and counter allegations of intentional delays that have bedeviled this case over its duration are the reasons why the court must start on a clean slate, free from all the shackles of allegations of unfairness.
But the AG argued that the ruling “has occasioned a miscarriage of justice, as it will hinder an efficient trial of the accused persons in the instant case”.
In his notice of appeal, the AG insists the High Court judge, Justice Kwasi Gyimah, misdirected himself in the application of the principles regarding the adoption of evidence in a trial.
“The so-called suspicious and allegation of unfairness have already been pronounced upon by the trial court as well as courts superior to the trial court and therefore have become res judicata. The learned judge ignored the point that the only motion pending before the trial court was an application for the previous judge to recuse himself which had been rendered mute by the judge’s retirement and subsequent placement of the case before the learned judge,” excerpts of the appeal stated.
The Attorney General has maintained that the trial judge erred, in the circumstances of the instant case, in placing a premium on the need to assess the demeanor of the witnesses called at the trial.
The appeal would be heard on 3 May 2023.
Below is the appeal