Twelve days into the substantive hearing on the election petition case, the Supreme Court again on Tuesday adjourned proceedings to Wednesday, May 8.
Tuesday’s hearing commenced with Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, lead Counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) continuing his interrogation of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, second petitioner in the case.
The day's session had its fair share of ‘incidents’, as Justices of the Court had to go into recess on a number occasions to decide on objections raised by Mr Philip Addison, lead Counsel for the petitioners, to some questions posed by Mr Tsikata.
In one such instances, Mr Tsikata produced a pink sheet which he asked the witness to identify.
Mr Addison objected to the idea, saying that there was no reason Mr Tsikata should be allowed to bring an entirely different pink sheet which was not part of the 11,000 pink sheets the petitioners submitted and seek to question the witness on that one.
Notwithstanding the protest, Counsel for the NDC continued asking witness to identify the pink sheet. When Dr Bawumia mentioned the name of the polling station on the sheet, Mr Tsikata asked him to confirm if there was over voting and whether or not he would ask for the annulment of the results of that particular polling station.
Mr Addison raised an objection again, saying that the Counsel could not proceed with that line of questioning. He accused Mr Tsikata of setting an entirely new case.
Mr Addison further charged that it would be unfair for the bench to allow Mr Tsikata to spring a surprise on them by introducing a new pink sheet and a line of questioning which was different from what his clients had answered to in their affidavits.
Mr Tsikata, however, insisted that the witness must be allowed to answer the question on the document. This prompted the Court to go into recess for the judges to confer on the matter.
After a lengthy period of deliberation, Mr Justice William Atuguba, Presiding Judge, gave the Court’s verdict.
He asserted that so far as the question objected to sought compositely to portray that there were other pink sheets with malpractices of the kind in respect of which the witness had testified that they should be annulled, the objection by the petitioners’ Counsel was over-ruled.
“However, beyond such composite question, the [line of] questioning cannot be allowed in as much as the third respondent’s turn to testify along this line is yet to come," Justice Atuguba added.
The Court at this juncture, adjourned sitting to Wednesday, May 8, 2013.
Source: GNA
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