The seven-member Supreme Court panel presided over by Justice Jones Victor Mawulorm Dotse,
Has by 5:2 majority decision, placed an injunction on James Gyakye Quayson from holding himself as Member of Parliament for the Assin North Constituency in the Central region.
Justices Jones Dotse, Mariama Owusu, Gertrude Torkornoo, Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, and Yonny Kulendi, are the 5 justices who granted the injunction application while Justices Agnes Dordzie and Nene Amegatcher, dissented.
“The MP is restrained from holding himself as MP for Assin North and retrained from attending Parliament to conduct business on behalf of Assin north” the presiding judge, Justice Jones Dotse ruled.
Background
The Cape Coast high court restrained James Gyakye Quayson from holding himself as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Assin North.
On Wednesday 28 July 2021, Justice Kwasi Boakye also ordered for fresh parliamentary elections to be held in the constituency. This followed a parliamentary election petition brought to the Cape Coast high court by Michael Ankomah-Nimfah, seeking to annul the MP’s election.
Quayson polled 17,498 votes against 14,793 by the New Patriotic Party’s Abena Durowaa Mensah in the 7 December 2020 parliamentary election.
On 30 December 2020, a resident of Assin North, Michael Ankomah – Nimfah, filed a parliamentary election petition at the Cape Coast high court challenging Quayson’s eligibility to be an MP.
He argued that the MP was not eligible because at the time he (Quayson) filed his nomination to stand as a parliamentary candidate, he was still a citizen of Canada. Such an act, he argued, was against the express provision of Article 94 (2)(a) of the 1992 constitution and Section 9(2) of the Representation of the People Act 1992 (PNDCL 284).
Quayson has since been fighting under the law to set this aside, with the matter currently pending at the Court of Appeal.
Michael Ankomah Nimfah, the resident of the constituency who initiated the action against the MP at the high court, has sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to stop Quayson from performing parliamentary duties.
That matter remains pending, as court officials have been unable to serve the MP with the court processes.
Source: Daily Mail GH
