Accra, Nov. 18, GNA - Tsatsu Tsikata last week filed a motion at the Supreme Court for a review of the decision that the Supreme Court announced on October 16, refusing the application for the Supreme Court to quash certain decisions and determination of Mrs Justice Henrietta Abban on June 18 that led to her delivering judgement convicting him and sentencing him to five years' imprisonment.

Tsatsu Tsikata filed a total of 21 grounds in support of his application for review of the decision, a statement from the Free Tsatsu Tsikata Campaign, a pressure group said.

Tsatsu Tsikata is also seeking a review of the decision of the Supreme Court that his application for arrest of a pending judgement of the Supreme Court was incompetent.

He has filed five grounds for review in respect of the decision. "Tsatsu Tsikata states that the claim in the written reasons of the Supreme Court that he 'ought reasonably to have anticipated the possibility of the judge declining to grant any further adjournment' is without any basis since, starting from October 27, 2006, the trial judge had explicitly decided that, 'to avoid a mistrial or a miscarriage of justice' she was adjourning to await the outcome of the appeal in respect of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) being called as a witness for the defence.

"Since that Supreme Court decision was still pending, it was wrong for the Supreme Court to fail to appreciate that the trial judge suddenly taking a different course on June 18, 2008 without prior notice was not fair to him but was arbitrary and capricious on her part," the statement said.

According to Tsikata, a statement in the written reasons that, "it is clear from the records (particularly the Applicant's original affidavit and his supplementary affidavit) that June 18 2008 was a date set for the delivery of judgment" was totally false and even contradict the earlier claim that he ought reasonably to have anticipated on June 18 2008 and previous court dates that the judge could decline to grant any further adjournment.

"Tsatsu Tsikata also describes as false a statement in the written reasons that at no time did the Supreme Court or any other court, make any order binding the trial judge from delivering her judgement pending the outcome of appeal on the IFC issue.

"He insists that, based on the considered ruling of the trial judge herself on 27th October 2006, which she reaffirmed on three subsequent occasions, ordering the adjournment to await the outcome of the appeal, documentary evidence of all of which had been provided to the Supreme Court, that statement by the Supreme Court was false." Tsatsu is also claiming that the Supreme Court misrepresented the essential facts of his application right from the first page of the written reasons.

According to him the Supreme Court, like Justice Henrietta Abban, acted in violation of Article 296 of the constitution requiring that discretion should be exercised in a fair and candid manner and not in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

He also claims that there was a "a consistent and fundamental failure to consider the case put forward" by him. In respect of his application for arrest of judgment, Tsatsu has stated that his application first came before the panel whose judgment he was seeking to arrest and argues that the Supreme Court declining the application was "misconceived and incompetent" simply because the Chief Justice had subsequently put the case before another panel was an obvious absurdity.

According to Tsatsu Tsikata that application to arrest judgment was not based on the exercise of the supervisory jurisdiction of the court under Article 130 (2) of the Constitution, but was based on the inherent jurisdiction of the Court and Article 129 (4) of the Constitution. Meanwhile his appeal, with regards to Mrs Abban's ruling on July 30, 2008, in which she dismissed his application for bail pending appeal will be heard at the Appeals Court on Monday 24, 2008.