General News of Friday, 2 September 2016

Source: classfmonline.com

Ford saga: Minority to petition Chief Justice

Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood. Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood.

The Minority in Parliament has vowed to pursue an independent probe and possible impeachment of President John Mahama as far as his acceptance of a Ford Expedition gift from a Burkinabe contractor is concerned, by presenting a petition to the Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood.

The Speaker of parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho, threw out a motion of inquiry filed by Minority legislators on Thursday, 1 September, explaining that the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), a constitutional body, is already investigating the case.

In dismissing the motion, Mr Adjaho told the house “after a careful study of the correspondence from CHRAJ, I have come to the conclusion that the matter is not different in material, in particular from the matter under investigation by CHRAJ.”

But Ranking Member of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu told Class News’ parliamentary correspondent, Ekow Annan on the same day that they will find alternatives.

“The matter does not end here at all. If they will not permit the house to investigate it, we will file the process with the same evidence we would have put before Members of Parliament before the Chief Justice and her team and then they will investigate it,” he stressed.

He holds the opinion that if the Speaker was going to say the motion was not admissible before the house, then there was no need to have summoned legislators in the first place. “If it were not, why did you invite us? …In this case, we brought the application for recall contemporaneously with the motion. …The reason for asking for the recall was the motion, so, if you thought that the motion was inadmissible then it was totally pointless for him to have invited us to the house to tell us the motion is inadmissible.”

“If you thought it was inadmissible then there was no point recalling us.”