Lawyers for Secretary of the defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue, are demanding copies of documents forming the basis of the decision by the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate him.
Lead counsel Nana Adjei Awuah on Monday, June 12, told the High Court he is unable to move the motion asking the court to restrain the OSP unless he receives the documents.
“In order to assist the court to do justice, all the relevant facts and evidence must be available to the court. After we filed our suit and the motion for injunction, the necessity of the document we seek, became apparent because of an article by the former Special Prosecutor. It was not as though we knew of it from the outset that we failed to raise it.
“It is the document that commenced the whole investigation process. It is the document that invoked the powers of the special prosecutor to investigate the applicant. In other words, but for that petition, very respectfully, he will not even be in court,“ he stated.
Lawyers for the OSP led by Dr Isidore Tuffuor disagreed with this view. Dr Tuffuor insisted there is no relationship between the said documents Mr Bissue is requesting and the motion for injunction.
He insisted nowhere in the substantive case filed by Mr Bissue does he reference these documents.
“This application for an injunction is founded on the statement of claim. The applicant’s case is determined by his pleadings. And these pleadings informed the injunction. In his pleadings, there is absolutely nothing referring to the document he is seeking the first defendant to produce.
“After filing his case, he comes across some other piece of information, that they seek to make part of their case, they know what to do. You cannot file a motion to produce. There is really nothing that joins the two motions.” He stated.
The court presided over by Justice Olivia Obeng Owusu indicated it was adjourning proceedings because Mr Awuah was unwell and not because of the claim that the motion for injunction cannot be moved unless Mr Bissue obtains the documents.
The case was thus adjourned to July 4. Charles Bissue is in court alleging his rights have been abused by the OSP due to the manner it conducted its investigations into following the publication of an investigative documentary by Anas Aremyaw Anas.
He contends the matters raised in the documentary have already been investigated by the police and should thus not give rise to a fresh probe by another investigative body.
The OSP is meanwhile on the heels of Mr Bissue with regards to an ongoing probe into the activities of the IMCIM.
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