An Accra Circuit Court on Tuesday dismissed an application for a trial judge to recuse himself on grounds of the likelihood of bias.
Mr Justice C.A. Wilson, a High Court Judge, sitting as an additional Circuit Court Judge, who dismissed the application said: “It is a case of an avid desire by the accused and his counsel to place impediments in the path of the trial and stultify proceedings.”
He said to grant the relief requested by the applicant would be to reward the intentional bad behaviour of the applicant designed to impair the ability of the complainant and the court to reach the true fact. “Granting the applicant’s motion would set the tenor for accused persons standing trial and counsels to introduce blackmailing and politics in criminal trials in order to extricate themselves from legitimate charges.”
Mr Justice Wilson said: “The overall integrity of the administration of justice would be tainted by granting the applicant’s motion. I am not satisfied that the grounds before me, meets the test set out, I am therefore declining to exercise my discretion to recuse myself for bias or prejudice.” “The applicant by sensational media publicity has generated public interest in the hearing of the case. There has been extensive delay in scheduling hearing dates because of defence counsel’s frequent request for adjournments. “I am persuaded that I ought to deal with the matter on its merits and I propose to do so expeditiously,” he added.
Mr Justice Wilson was giving the ruling in the case in which Mr Ato Dadzie is the Counsel for the accused/applicant and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Kofi Blagogee for the prosecution.The application was on the grounds that the judge offered to hear the case in chambers to avoid media coverage out of reverence for the complainant’s father, Former President John Agyekum Kufuor.
Secondly, the trial judge invited the complainant Mr Edward Agyekum Kufuor and the accused Kwame Opoku into his chambers and endeavoured to settle the case. Other grounds were that cross-examination of the complainant by the defence counsel had been fraught by constant interruption by the trial judge.
The facts of the case are that the complainant and accused are business partners operating Axex Company Limited, and the accused is the Managing Director while the complainant is a Director of the company.
In December 2003, the company was awarded a contract by the Ministry of Mines and Energy to supply electric meters valued at $2,975,500. According to the prosecution, the accused allegedly altered the contract sum to read $1,812,500 even though the contract sum of $2,975,500 was fully paid to the company by the Ministry.
The prosecution said the accused opened an account of which he was the sole signatory and fraudulently, unlawfully and systematically transferred various sums of money from Axex Company account into the said account. It said the complainant who was at that time ordinarily resident in the US on his return detected the shortfalls in the company’s account and reported the matter to the police and the accused was charged with 19 counts of forgery and stealing before the court.