The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has pushed back against claims that the contempt case against New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Akwatia, Ernest Kumi, has been fully resolved, insisting that the matter remains active and unresolved in court.
This clarification comes in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that overturned an earlier contempt conviction against Kumi and barred High Court judge Justice Emmanuel Senyo Amedahe from proceeding with sentencing.
In an interview on the Channel One Newsroom on Sunday June 15, the Eastern Regional Secretary of the NDC, Jamal Konneh, accused the NPP of creating a false narrative of total victory, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling addressing only procedural issues and not the substance of the case.
“The NPP filed about five reliefs at the Supreme Court. The first one was that the court should set aside the petition, arguing that the petitioners filed it without a gazette,” Konneh explained. “That was dismissed by a unanimous 5-0 decision of the court.”
He clarified that while the court agreed with the NPP on one point — that the High Court judge should recuse himself — the contempt case itself has not been dismissed. “What was upheld was the fact that the judge sitting on the case should recuse himself. But the contempt case still holds,” he said.
According to Konneh, the court directed that a new judge should take over and handle the contempt proceedings. “That is the impression they [NPP] are creating outside, but the contempt still holds. The court said the judge who sat on that case should recuse himself for another judge to come in and handle that aspect,” he added.
The Supreme Court’s ruling followed a judicial review application filed by Ernest Kumi’s legal team, led by NPP Legal Affairs Director Gary Nimako-Marfo. They argued that the election petition filed by the NDC’s parliamentary candidate, Henry Boakye Yiadom, was invalid because it was submitted before the official gazetting of the results — a key requirement under Ghana’s electoral laws.
Despite that argument, Konneh stressed that the substantive election petition has not yet been heard. “The substantive case is still going on. We are yet to go into that case, but they [NPP] are there jubilating that they have won,” he said.
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