It was reported on 24 July 1998 (see IFEX alert) that two journalists, Haruna Atta, editor of "The Weekend Statesman", and Kweku Baako Jr., editor of "The Guide", had been found guilty of contempt of court by the Court of Appeal.

The contempt conviction was handed down for publishing libellous material about Ghana's First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, in spite of an earlier court order restraining them from so doing, pending the hearing of the substantive case of libel brought against them by the First Lady.

Last year, the First Lady sued the two journalists and their publications for stories they carried about her, which were based on an earlier article which appeared in "West Africa" magazine.

The magazine article, attributed to Gamel Gorkeh Nkrumah, son of the late President Nkrumah, claimed that the First Lady had talked to him concerning her sister, who had moved from the camp of the Nkrumahists where she belonged by reasons of family tradition, to join the right wing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The story was carried in "The Statesman", "The Weekend Statesman" and "The Guide" newspapers of the weeks ending 19 October 1997, 31 October - 6 November 1997, and 31 October - 5 November 1997. The coverage prompted the First Lady to institute libel proceedings in an Accra High Court against the two journalists, and seek a perpetual injunction against the editors and their publishers.

A further action was brought by the First Lady, who sought an ex parte motion restraining the two editors from publishing any more libellous material about the case until the determination of the suit.

The interim injunction was upheld by Justice Owusu Sekyere, who, however, threw out the application for contempt, whereupon counsel for the First Lady appealed against the decision, arguing that the editors had published matters concerning the case which were libellous since the court order.

It was this claim that was upheld on appeal by the Court of Appeal, which held that the two journalists disobeyed the court order restraining any further libellous publication, pending determination of the substantive suit.

When the decision of the Court of Appeal came down, lawyers for the journalists filed a notice of appeal together with a stay of execution pending the hearing of the application, which would allow the journalists to remain free pending their appeal. In the meantime, however, the journalists were taken into custody.

It is feared by many freedom of expression observers that with the upcoming vacation of the Supreme Court, any delay in granting bail would mean that the journalists would have to spend the next month in prison, thus, by default, effectively serving their terms by the time the Courts resume business in October to hear their application.

The President and members of the General Council of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) have petitioned the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Isaac Kobina Abban, to ensure a hearing of the application for bail and stay of execution in time to beat the deadline (31 July 1998), by which date the courts will go on break. In their petition to the Chief Justice, the GBA said such a swift intervention by His Lordship the Chief Justice "would disabuse the mind of the public about any alleged complicity of the Judiciary in the curtailment of the individuals' constitutional right to immediate hearing of their applications by the Court."

In a separate case, the Courts last week ordered the arrest and remand of two other journalists, Nana Kofi Coomson, editor-in-chief of the "Ghanaian Chronicle", and Eben Quarcoo, former editor of the "Free Press", claiming the two were likely to jump bail in connection with criminal proceedings pending against them in the courts.

The two were charged last year under obsolete colonial criminal libel laws for carrying articles in their respective papers which accused the Ghana Government of drug-trafficking.

Following these developments, there have been strong reactions from a cross-section of Ghanaians, particularly from the media front where an ad hoc group, Friends of Freedom of Expression, organised a march to the office of the Chief Justice to present a petition in protest against the growing threats to press freedom by the Courts of Ghana. The group is made up of journalists, writers, publishers, academics, lawyers, Members of Parliament, as well as other individuals who expressed their indignation at this state of affairs saying, "we view with sadness, and at the same time outrage, the increasing use of the courts of our country to weaken press freedom and intimidate journalists."

SOURCE: Free Expression Ghana, Accra.

PS Gamel Gorkeh Nkrumah, a son of Dr Nkrumah, is the Editor of Al Alhram, the Egyptian newspaper. His article which was published by West Africa magazine in London in 1997 was not amended in any way from its original submission.