General News of Friday, 19 July 2013

Source: peacefmonline

Tony Lithur and Tsikata to file separate addresses

Spokesperson for the first and third respondent, Nana Ato Dadzie, has indicated that Lawyers Tony Lithur and Tsatsu Tsikata will be submitting separate written addresses.

According to him: “we had separate cases and I expect that separate addresses will be filed”.

On Wednesday, the nine Judges of the Supreme Court led by Justice William Atuguba asked counsel for all the parties to submit their written addresses to the Court’s registrar by July 30.

The address will be a summary of all the evidence presented to the court by the parties and an evaluation of the evidence.

In an interview on Citi FM’s eye witness news, Nana Ato Dadzie indicated that they have already started writing their addresses even before the close of day; Wednesday. According to him, it will be unprofessional on the part of any lawyer to wait for the case to be over before writing an address.

The former Chief of Staff under ex-President Jerry John Rawlings stated: “our legal team has already started putting the address together”.

He opined that their addresses among others will focus on the fact that no new material has been offered to the court by way of evidence to warrant a change of position (results of the 2012 elections). He said even if something went wrong during the December 2012 elections, it does not mean that the final verdict should be changed.

“The petitioners have not supported their claim…even if there were challenges in the elections; it doesn’t mean we should put it aside. Our case is that, John Mahama was legally elected as the president of this country and that has not changed,” he intimated.

Describing proceedings as a ‘tension packed session’, Nana Ato Dadzie congratulated the Judges for their tenacity, adding, “not a single judge complained of illness and it is a very remarkable situation... clearly, the Court of Ghana has taken over this matter; the Supreme Court has presided over this matter, for 91 days, we’ve run; we started from 16th or so April and we’ve closed on the 17th of July. We have really come of age as a people. It’s a constitutional order and we’ve been able to show that yes, we can make it, we can rule ourselves”.