The National Democratic Congress (NDC) caucus in Parliament has criticised the Supreme Court for what they perceive as a failure to properly assess the evidence presented by Alexander Afenyo-Markin, Majority Leader from the New Patriotic Party (NPP), in a case before the court.
The case revolves around the Speaker’s declaration of four parliamentary seats as vacant, execution of which the Supreme Court subsequently stayed.
Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Murtala Mohammed argued that the proceedings from Parliament, which were used as evidence by Mr Afenyo-Markin, had not been formally approved.
In an interview with JoyNews, he explained that parliamentary records are subject to review and correction before being finalised as official documents.
As a result, he believes the court made an error in accepting unapproved records as authentic evidence.
“Whatever happened in Parliament, the next day is when you approve the proceedings. That is why we have votes after correction. Until the proceedings are corrected, you can’t take that as an official document of Parliament,” he said.
The Tamale Central MP further noted that, an officer in Parliament is currently under investigation for sharing raw, uncorrected parliamentary proceedings with the NPP.
The lawmaker claims that these unverified proceedings misled the court, leading to a flawed judgment.
Mr Mohammed criticised the Supreme Court for not conducting due diligence to verify the authenticity of the documents presented by Afenyo-Markin and his legal team, expressing concern over this oversight, and described the court’s actions as “worrying.”
In response to this development, Mr Mohammed said his expectation was for the Speaker of Parliament should have cited the judges involved for contempt of Parliament, given their reliance on what he described as misleading and unauthorised documents.
Source: Emma Ankrah
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