By Felix Engsalige Nya
The Supreme Court yesterday unexpectedly adjourned
proceeding of the presidential elections petition till today to enable parties
in the case to countercheck some duplicate pink sheets that were to have been
tendered in the court.
The decision of the Supreme Court followed a
consensus reached by the parties to have the matter adjourn so they could have
enough time to cross check some pink sheets that Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, lead
counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had wanted to tender through
the witness during cross examination.
As part of strategies to have the matter tried
expeditiously, the court at a point ordered that Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata , lead
counsel for the NDC who has been cross examining the witness on duplicate pink
sheets list all those that he intend to
question the witness and tenders them in bulk.
Following that order, counsel listed the duplicate
serial numbers that the petitioners have attached as exhibited so the
petitioners counsel could go through before they are tender.
The parties would go through a list of pink sheets
that Mr. Tsikata sought to tender through the witness to confirm or otherwise
of duplication of serial numbers.
According to Mr. Tsikata, the list are so bulky that
they needed the entire day to go through so that when the court resume today,
the witness could only confirm or deny of their admissibility as evidence of
duplicate serial numbers.
Counsels are to look and verify as to whether the
duplicate pink sheets are indeed contain any duplication of serial numbers,( if
any ) are they from same polling station
which has been used for different exhibit numbers by the petitioners.
The list formed pat of the duplicate serial number
pink sheets that the petitioners have alleged characterized election
malpractices and wanted the court to annul results from those polling stations.
But Mr. Tsikata contended that the petitioners have
used same polling station pink sheets and labeled them for two to four
different exhibits, to which in his view was amounted to double duplication by
the petitioners to mislead the court into believing that there were indeed
duplicate serial numbers.
He also argued in his cross examination that the
petitioners was seeking to flood the
court with exhibits which lacks authenticity in order to make their case
and therefore vowed to expose the
dishonesty and the incredibility of the petitioners on the face of the evidence
brought before the court.
The NDC legal
counsel has been cross examining Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, star witness and second petitioner on
a number of allegations including, voting without Biometric Verification
Devices (BVD), over voting, non signature of presiding officers and duplicate
serial numbers of the results booklet also known as the pink sheets.
As part of legal strategies to let the petitioner’s
case look weak and baseless, counsel took the witness through a stressful cross
examination on one pink sheets to another, pointing several contradictory and
quadruple pinks sheets that the petitioners used as basis to make their case.
Yesterday
Proceedings
Before the proceedings yesterday, the court
overruled last week Thursday legal objection raised by Mr. Philip Addison, lead
counsel for the petitioners over the tendering of some documents by the NDC
counsel.
The court view was that the objection raised by the
petitioners counsel was without merit and that the document that Mr. Tsikata
wanted to tender were part of documents already in evidence .
Cross
Examination
The much awaited skillful cross examination by Mr.
Tsatsu Tsikata, lead counsel for the NDC continues with the usual legal objection
by the lead counsel for the petitioners.
Counsel:
Dr. Bawumia, can you confirm that those pink sheets you are holding are
duplicates already in the list?
Addison:
Objection, my Lords, counsel is asking question base on evidence which is not
before the court. Please, my lords, I think the question is baseless.
The primary sources of this document is not before
this court, so we are taking objection to counsel seeking to tender the
document, it is not form part of the evidence in this court.
Tsikata:
“My Lords, as indicated, we are following the process as established by the
court, instead of taking one pink sheet after another, we think we could go
through the list and ask composite questions on them.”
“Your Lordships, I think the objection is baseless
and without merits. The earlier ruling suggests that these objections are
overruled, because the documents we are asking on are already in evidence. “
Court:
“Counsel (Tsikata), can you clarify us as to the nature of the list you sought
to tender, because counsel for the other side (Addison) is saying that the list
is from their primary sources, they prepared it.”
Tsikata:
“The witness prepared the document as part of information provided to us upon
request.”
The list isolated the information that would help in
the cross examination, the list is different from those that have been earlier
tendered.
Addison:
“My
Lords, the list in the document is not in the exhibits of the NDC 33, which has
been tendered in this court, it is the list formed by of the list provided by
the witness as information, so it cannot be tendered.”
Justice
Dotse: Addison, can you clarify us, what is the basis of
your objection, because this one has been overruled.
Addison:
the basis of our objection is that the document has been prepared by the witness;
it is part of evidence before the court.
Justice
Dotse: I believed decision has been solved, you can wish
to tender it, through your witness or so, as part of expedition this case, I
think we do not want to revisit issues that have been decided. I think you need to help expedite this matter
as we all wanted.
Addison:
No problem, if counsel is allowed to ask question, then I think when it comes
to our turn, we would also be giving similar opportunity.
Tsikata:
I think if counsel wants to withdraw his objection, he should do so, we are
asking question on documents before this court.
Addison:
I am not withdrawing my objection; if you want you make your argument and the
court rule on the matter.
Court:
The objection is overruled, counsel continues.
Counsel:
Dr. Bawumia, this is a list of 25 polling station pink sheets, the first one is
from DC Primary School, Kwabena -Krom, and can you confirm that, exhibit
MBP-6040 that the serial number which is duplicated can be found in the other
polling stations in list before you?
Witness:
yes, I can confirm that that is correct, but I can also confirm that we used it
once in our data.
Counsel:
you can also confirm that the duplicated serial numbers are the same in all the
polling stations?
Witness:
yes, I can confirm that, but as I said we also used them once in our analysis.
Following the bulky nature of the list, counsel for the NDC request the
court to retired to chambers so they could go through the list and when they
are done the court could return since it would take time for the parties to go
through.
When the court resumed in an hour time, Mr. Tsikata
told the court that parties were able to finished with one list out of the 11
logs of the exhibits and that they would need to you the court room and extra
time, probably the whole day to finish.
According to Mr. Tsikata, he preferred to list the
exhibits in logs, rather then taking one after another in order to help in
expedition the matter.
He therefore prayed the could to grant the parties
leave of time and adjourn the case so
they could sort out all the different and return today for the continuation of
the cross examination.
The court obliged to the request after enquiring
from the other parties on their consent, it adjourned the matter till today at
9:30 am for continuation of cross examination.
Mr. Tsikata who has been cross examining Dr, Bawumia
for the past two weeks is expected to end his cross examination today, while
awaiting court direction on the KPMG audit counting on the number of polling
stations exhibits that the petitioners had filed
before the court.
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