General News of Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Source: citifmonline
A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) legal team, Gloria Akuffo, has stated that it would have been unfair for the hearing of the election petition case to have commenced without the petitioners having access to Electoral Commission’s affidavit.
The counsel of the petitioners asked the court not to begin hearing of the case until they were duly served with the affidavit of the EC.
The Supreme Court therefore adjourned the hearing of the case to allow the EC to file its affidavit by close of Tuesday.
Madam Akuffo stated that, “it cannot be the case that while we have been compelled to put all our affidavits before the respondents, we are being asked to start our evidence without having the benefit of the evidence of the respondents; that certainly cannot be fair, that cannot be justice.”
According to Madam Akuffo, “as of this morning we haven’t been served with a single affidavit sworn to by Mr. Aseidu Nketia on the joint behalf of the first respondent, Mr. John Mahama, and on the behalf of the NDC.”
“We were told that they had not finished filing and that they were still in the process of filing their affidavits. It turns out that the first co-respondent, Mr. John Mahama was in the process of filing many affidavits as many as 7000 affidavits none of which has been served on us [NPP].”
Meanwhile, a member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) legal team, Nana Ato Dadzie, has said they are expectant that the hearing of the matter will begin tomorrow.
He said: “We have filed our affidavits in opposition; the EC is filing its [affidavits] today [Tuesday] and we expect serious business tomorrow [Wednesday]. I don’t think that our side would be ready to encourage an adjournment beyond today.”