Private legal practitioner Maurice Ampaw has taken offence to claims that Tsatsu Tsikata, the Lead Counsel of John Dramani Mahama in the 2020 election petition has exhibited superior legal knowledge than the seven judges sitting on the case.

Maurice Ampaw is incensed by what he considers to be propaganda by some Ghanaians that Tsatsu is more adept at interpreting the law than the judges.

According to him, Tsatsu has so far exhibited gross incompetence in his understanding of the current electoral laws.

He fumed on Neat FM that Tsatsu Tsikata is out of touch with the new laws and is relying on the old electoral laws to advance his argument.

On Tuesday, January 19, 2020, a plea by the lawyers of John Mahama to have the chairperson of the Electoral Commission answer questions over errors in the petition was quashed by the judges.

Commenting on the judgement, Maurice Ampaw says the lawyers of John Dramani are deliberately trying to frustrate the system.

He opines that Tsatsu Tsikata is deploying those tactics to make it seem like he is working hard when in reality he has no case.

“I knew the Supreme Court will quash their questions because they are working with new rules which talk about avoiding delays. The new rules does follow the old rules and Tsatsu was arguing with the old rules.


"As lawyers, one of the tricks is that if you don’t have a good case, you delay it. We employ a lot of tactics to delay the case either to frustrate the system or make it seem like you are working and that’s exactly what Tsatsu is doing.

"He is getting praise on social media that he has schooled the judges, he has done nothing. If you know the law, you’ll know that he school no one. He was in the realm of the old. He was displaying old skills. We are in the new era and he should get used to it. Tsatsu cannot school the judges. These Supreme Court judges are masters. The law is in their bosom so you can’t school them. Tsatsu can’t school the judges”, he said.

Maurice Ampaw provided his expert view on why one of the justices instructed Tsatsu Tsikata to stop referring to Jean Mensa and rather focus on her office.

"The returning officer is an office and not a person. That is why the presidency is an office. Jean Mensa is the Returning Officer for the presidential elections but the officer is bigger than her person. Anybody can step in as Returning Officer. This is company law," he added.