The defence team for the convicted former government officials in the Quality Grain case has described the conviction of its clients as illegal and unconstitutional, saying their incarceration constitutes a violation of their fundamental human rights.

The lawyers made the submissions at an Accra High Court presided over by Mr Justice Yaw Appau.

The former Ministers of Finance and Agriculture, Kwame Peprah and Ibrahim Adam as well the former Director of Legal Services of the Finance Ministry, Dr George Sipa Yankey were sentenced to various jail terms in April for conspiring and willfully causing financial loss of 20 million dollars to the state.

In their statement of claim, the defence team led by Mr. Lithur stated that the trial judge acted in contravention of the Constitution. They said their clients were not charged for contempt and therefore, it was mandatory that the strict requirement of Article 19 (11) be complied with. However, the judge did not do so.

The statement said the judge acted wholly outside his legal and Constitutional authority and by so doing the fundamental human rights of the applicants, as provided under Article 19 (11 and 12) were breached without any jurisdiction whatsoever.

According to the lawyers, the trial judge, having substituted his own definition, which he sought from textbooks and dictionaries, proceeded to sentence their clients to the various jail terms.

They contended that the purported conviction by Mr Justice Dixon Kwame Afreh, a Supreme Court judge who sat on the Quality Grain as an additional High Court judge, was a void act, which could not be a foundation for depriving the applicants of their Constitutional rights.

Therefore, they argued, their detention in the circumstances was a denial of their personal liberty protected in Article 14 of the Constitution. In an affidavit in support of their claim, Counsel prayed the court to grant them leave to issue a writ of Habeas Corpus to compel the Director of Prisons to produce the convicts in court and to explain why he is keeping them in detention.

They argued that Mr Justice Afreh in passing his sentence on the convicts, resorted to the use of the Common Law sources, including the precedent in England and definition in books and dictionaries to find the meaning of the words "willful" and "Financial loss," words which were used in section 179A (a) of Act 29.

"Though the charge sheet under which the convicts were charged referred to section 179A (3) (a) of the Criminal Code, the actual terms of the charge did not even reflect the provision of the said section," they added. The court after hearing the submissions adjourned the case to May 27, for court decide on the matter.