The importance of consistency in the application of the principles of law is necessary as inconsistency tends to undermine the coherence of the law and generates a mass of disparate special rules distinct from those known under the law.
Its approach to the Application for Stay of Execution by Alexander Afenyo-Markin in the vacant seats saga is most confusing.
The first problem is the nature of the application, which was sought. A party cannot seek an Application for Stay of Execution in respect of a matter which is not a Judgment or a Court order. The speaker’s order is not of such. In any case, it is absurd to seek a Stay of Execution in a case in which the Court has not made any orders. There was no jurisdiction in the Court.
The second point and the most fundamental one is that, the cause of action for which the applicant went to Court had long been superseded by the conduct of the speaker who had declared the seats vacant.
The action was filed at a time when the seats were yet to be declared vacant. At the date of hearing, the Application was not in sync with the writ before the Court.
It is important to note that the speaker’s conduct, by which he declared the seats vacant, created a new cause of action.
The Applicant has not amended the writ to fit the new facts in the Application.
The grant of the Application was thus a merger of the new facts with the old cause of action. You cannot put new wine in old wineskins. It cannot hold.
Under the circumstances, the Court was procedurally wrong in many ways.
And then again, the Court’s assumption of jurisdiction in the face of Article 99 of the 1992 Constitution leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
This case can only come before the Supreme Court by way of reference after a filing in the High Court.