Martin Amidu Sues Mahama Administration Over Ex-Gratia

A Former Attorney General, Martin A.B.K. Amidu, has dragged the Mahama administration, through the Attorney General, to court over his unpaid ex-gratia. A source at the Attorney General�s Department told the media that Mr. Amidu filed the suit in a High Court on July 30. The suit is essentially praying the court to compel the government to pay all monies due him for serving under different ministerial portfolios under the administration of late President Evans Atta Mills, whom President Mahama succeeded. He first served as the Interior Minister. Mr. Amidu�s last assignment was the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, but was unceremoniously dismissed in January 2012 for his apparent disagreement with the Mills administration over the handling of the controversial judgement debt paid to NDC businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome. According to court sources, Mr. Amidu is unhappy that his ex-gratia, salary arrears and rent due him as an Article 71 office holder�as stipulated in the constitution�had been withheld by the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) government headed by President Mahama. Meanwhile, his colleague ministers of state and parliamentarians have all been paid their ex-gratia running into several millions of Ghana cedis. All Article 71 office holders are entitled to their ex-gratia awards covering their period of service in public office. Daily Guide gathered that the case would be called when the Courts return from their legal vacation. Pending Legal Battle In another development, Mr Amidu-popularly referred to as the Citizen Vigilante, is also fighting the Supreme Court over its ruling on the case he brought against businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome and two others including the Government of Ghana (Attorney-General) and Waterville Holdings. The court by a unanimous decision on June 14, 2013 ordered Waterville Holdings to refund the GH�41million paid to them to the state and also ruled that a decision on the GH�51.2million paid to Woyome would be made after the case at the High Court was resolved. Although the ruling went in his favour, an obviously unsatisfied Amidu had filed an application accusing the court of � inadvertently, patently mistakenly or unwittingly� committing the basic error of attributing the facts pleaded by the Attorney-General and Alfred Woyome who are first and third defendants/respondents in the case to the facts pleaded by him (plaintiff/applicant) as grounding for the dispute between him and the defendants and thereby disabled the Supreme Court from deciding the real dispute between him and the defendants resulting in what he described as �a patently wrong decision�. This was contained in his statement of claim of the review application dated July 12, 2013, asking for the case to be reviewed. Argument The former Attorney-General argued that �the judgment of the Supreme Court in not adverting to the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2004 (C.I. 47) Order 2 Rule 6 and Order 11 Rule (1) regarding the fact that the Alfred Woyome�s writ of summons filed in the High Court on 19th April 2010 was accompanied by a statement of claim filed at the same time in the said High Court containing averments stating clearly that the action in the High Court was for restitutionary reliefs based on the international business and economic transaction between the second defendant and the Government of Ghana in this action in which the Supreme Court delivered the judgment in Amidu v Attorney General and two Others, 14th June 2013, Supreme Court (Unreported) was given per incuriam, inadvertently and was fundamentally wrong and occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice to the plaintiff/applicant and the public interest under the 1992 Constitution.� Justification For him, �the statement of claim filed by the third defendant (Woyome) as plaintiff in the High Court puts the above quoted decision of the Supreme Court within perspective of the case of the plaintiff/applicant in the exhibition of the third defendant/respondent�s statement of claim filed in the High Court on 19th April 2010 to the plaintiff/applicant�s pleadings.� This, according to him shows beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr Woyome, who prides himself as a financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), was relying on a restitutionary claim related to the ineffective CAN 2008 stadia agreement and raised issues that impact on such a claim on article 181 (5) of the 1992 Constitution which vests jurisdiction in the Court to interpret the provision in order to determine its scope as it has already done in the case of Waterville Holdings in Amidu v Attorney General & two Others, 21st June 2013. �Unfortunately because the Supreme Court inadvertently or unwittingly concentrated on the pleadings of the first and third defendants (Attorney-General and Woyome) to the neglect of the pleadings of the plaintiff, the Supreme Court disabled itself from appreciating the basic and fundamental fact that the third defendant�s final writ of summons which the Supreme Court quoted extensively in its judgement and referred to as opaque was not opaque when read alongside the statement of claim of the third defendant as plaintiff filed on 19th April 2010 in the High Court.�