CDD Fellow, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, says following the Supreme Court restraining the Assin North legislator, James Gyakye Quayson, from carrying out his Parliamentary duties, he is rather confident the Court will call for bye-elections to be held for the constituency.
The Professor, who has described the injunction as containing a lot of procedural confusion, says the Member of Parliament should simply bring the matter to rest by officially resigning and running again for the bye-election.
He further urged the legislator to try and win the election to “show us how wrong we do things and how inconsistent, and how incoherent our jurisprudence has become.”
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Professor Asare had bemoaned the processes leading to the Supreme Court granting the injunction, and expressed worry the Supreme Court may be rushing into too many political issues which may hurt its integrity in the eyes of the people.
“There are so many hanging issues like Edudzi was saying. There’s a case on appeal, there’s this Supreme Court ruling which it’s going to expedite, there’s an application for a review of a 3-2 decision by the Supreme Court in which Justice Foamang and Justice Dodzi dissented, there are so many hanging issues.
“This injunction came from nowhere. I’m afraid the Supreme Court is rushing too much into too many political cases and I’m afraid when it does so it’s setting aside too many precedents, and I’m really worried that the Supreme Court is going to create a situation where people are not going to take it very serious. I’m worried,” he said.
He added that “I wrote about this many months ago when Samson invited me to give a New Year statement , I said the most difficult situation facing the country now is a Court that is increasingly being perceived as partisan in a country where we are excessively partisan. The Court must look at this case more carefully.
“Here you are, there is a High Court judgement that can easily be enforced. Why does the Court feel the need to be the one to enforce a High Court judgement? It strikes me as odd, it’s inconsistent with anything that you learn in law school or you figure out during your law practice.”
“I’m really worried, I think eventually, they can say what they want, once they’ve granted this injunction, I’m 100% confident that they’re going to say well the election should be held. So if I were the MP, I would resign, and I would go and run again for elections and try and win. And winning again will show us how wrong we do things and how inconsistent, and how incoherent our jurisprudence has become,” he concluded.