Ambulance trial: Judge disallowing legal argument abuse of her discretionary power – Sammy Gyamfi

The National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi has stated that the trial judge in the ambulance purchase case abused her discretionary power by failing to allow legal arguments in court on Thursday, June 6.

According to him, the issue of whether an application had been moved is distinct from whether the court has the discretion to allow legal arguments.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, June 8, Mr Gyamfi argued that the lawyers for the accused are not complaining because they were denied the opportunity to make legal arguments, although they would have preferred to do so.

He emphasised that the trial judge has exercised her discretion to allow oral arguments, noting that “the judge herself conceived that this is a novel legal issue.”

Mr Gyamfi stated that in cases involving novel legal issues, it is customary for the judge in exercising her discretion, to allow counsel to address the court on important matters to ensure justice is served.

“That was a discretionary matter governed by Article 296, and I think that the manner in which the judge exercised the discretion in disallowing legal arguments was an abuse of her discretionary power under Article 296,” he said.

“But the most important point is whether they were heard or not. It is clear that they were not heard because when an application is filed, it has a filing date and a hearing date and it is written boldly on the face of the application that court to be moved on this date.

“You go to court – the norm as I have seen within the short time that I have been a lawyer, the norm is that the court, once the counsel for the applicants is always in court, the court would always ask the counsel for the applicants to move the motion. That at least is always allowed by the court,” Mr Gyamfi stressed.

The National NDC Communications Officer reiterated that under the law, once parties bring a matter before the judge, the least the judge can do is give them a hearing.