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Judges of the Supreme Court who are hearing the 2012 presidential election petition Monday went to town in their condemnation of social commentators, lawyers and journalists for unfairly criticising their work. Their sentiments stemmed from the way and manner in the public, including lawyers, had taken their work, especially their rulings, out of context and lashed out at the judges. According to the judges, they had even been referred to as timid in some of the criticisms and urged all to be circumspect in their criticism.Judges of the Supreme Court who are hearing the 2012 presidential election petition yesterday went to town in their condemnation of social commentators, lawyers and journalists for unfairly criticising their work. Mr Justice Sulley Gbadegbe was the one who brought up the issue during the court�s sitting in Accra yesterday. He said the case was the first of its kind being tried by the court, for which reason there were bound to be challenges, saying that notwithstanding, some of the criticisms had gone beyond bounds and tended to undermine the personality of the judges. He said the sentiments expressed were not in respect of the election petition alone but also the case in which Mr Bernard Mornah, the General Secretary of the People�s National Convention (PNC), instituted an action in the court challenging Rule 69 C (5) of the Supreme Court (Amendment) Rules, 2012 (CI 74). The court ruled that the part of CI 74 which provided that "the court shall sit from day to day, including public holidays, when hearing a presidential election petition� was unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void. The court further ruled that its decision in respect of petitions filed to challenge the election of a President could be reviewed if any of the parties was dissatisfied. Justice Gbadegbe said, for instance, that some comments on that case were very bad because they referred to the judges as timid. He urged the public to use language which showed courtesy to the court, adding that it had the authority to deal with whoever was found culpable but it wanted to do the case in a healthy manner. Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, lead counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), shared in the sentiments of the judge and urged lawyers to respect their professional calling and not engage in anything untoward. According to him, there seemed to be an extraordinary spirit of partisanship as far as the election petition was concerned. Mr Phillip Addison, lead counsel for the petitioners, as well as Mr Tony Lithur and Mr James Quashie-Idun, counsel for the President and the Electoral Commission (EC), respectively, shared in the sentiments expressed The President of the court, Mr Justice William Atuguba, also commented on issues regarding the court�s rulings, especially the recent ruling concerning Lawyer Benony Tony Amekudzi�s motion to be among lawyers for the President under the cloak of a friend of the court which was thrown out by the court. Justice Atuguba said the motion was not thrown out on the basis that it was not supported by an affidavit and urged all, especially journalists, to seek explanation from lawyers if they did not understand anything relating to the court�s work. Lawyers, he said, should also try to preserve the integrity of the whole process. Later, Mr Tsikata took charge of his cross-examination of Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, the star witness of the petitioners. Counsel, who was hard on the witness, went all out to discredit Dr Bawumia�s testimony and extended the same high handedness to the lead counsel for the petitioners, Mr Addison, whom Tsikata, at a point, asked to shut up. In the heat of exchanges between him and Mr Addison, Tsikata asked the latter to shut up, a comment which did not go down well with Mr Addison. Mr Addison, in drawing the court�s attention to that remark, retorted that he was capable of using same rude language. The court did not rule on the matter, except that Justice Atuguba indicated to the lawyers to go back to the rules of the game, such that all comments should be directed at the bench for redress. When Mr Addison enquired from the bench about his objection to what he called the unsavoury comments used by Mr Tsikata, because he was not satisfied by the answer from the bench, Justice Atuguba replied that what he had said had solved the problem. The incident happened when Mr Addison raised an objection regarding a question Mr Tsikata had asked the witness relating to which members of the petitioners� legal team were present during the collation of pink sheets for the court. Mr Tsikata wanted the witness to mention two or three names and after the witness had mentioned the names, his counsel intervened on the grounds that what transpired between the witness and his lawyers was privileged information and so he did not see its relevance. According to Mr Tsikata, the question was relevant because the witness was not telling the truth and that it was the witness who testified that he was unable to explain what he had seen on a pink sheet shown to him by Mr Tsikata. He said the witness� evidence indicated that when the pink sheets were being prepared as exhibits for court other people were present. Mr Lithur intervened and said the question was relevant, since it hinged on quality control of the issues at stake, but Mr Addison again objected to the capacity in which Mr Lithur made those comments because he was not counsel for the NDC. The court, after some minutes of deliberations, sustained the objection in so far as the legal team of the petitioners was concerned and that involving Mr Lithur�s point on relevance was allowed. Mr Tsikata then asked the witness to mention those persons who were not members of the legal team but were present during the preparation of the exhibits and Dr Bawumia mentioned the names of Johnny Attafuah, Ronald, Harry and Emmanuel, all of whom he said assisted to put together the exhibits. Both Mr Tsikata and Dr Bawumia were very meticulous in their approach to the business of the day, and while the former painstakingly scrutinised every pink sheet, the latter also answered questions with the same zeal. However, Mr Tsikata, who seemed to be overly engaged in the repetition of questions, was asked by the bench to be mindful that some of those questions had been asked already, such as questions relating to attempts to duplicate the pink sheets to deceive the court. The line of the cross-examination centred on pink sheets which had been signed by the polling agents of the petitioners and the fact that there were no indications on the face of the pink sheets that any protests had been raised by the agents against the results that were declared. Before the court could rise for lunch break, Mr Tsikata reminded it that at the stage where the matter had reached, he did not want the witness to interact with anybody, not even his lawyers. Mr Justice Atuguba then asked Mr Tsikata whether he wanted the witness to still remain in the witness box during the break. Mr Addison replied that Dr Bawumia was capable of being an expert and also on top of issues at stake and, therefore, there was no cause for alarm. The court ruled that Dr Bawumia could rise from the witness box but he was not to interact with the public. Hearing continues today.