The Supreme Court will later today, Monday, February 1, 2021, resume hearing the 2020 Election Petition case filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama.
Mr. Mahama is in court challenging the outcome of the results declared by the Electoral Commission on December 9th.
The cross-examination of the NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia will continue today.
At the last sitting, prior to Mr. Nketia mounting the witness box, seven paragraphs were struck out from his statement.
This was after Akoto Ampaw, the lead lawyer for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, asked the Supreme Court to delete portions of Mr. Nketia’s statement.
Mr. Ampaw argued that ten paragraphs in Asiedu Nketia’s statement should be expunged because they were “not based on the pleadings of the petitioner, unduly prejudicial and scandalous”.
The court in its ruling struck out seven paragraphs out of the ten paragraphs that President Akufo-Addo’s lawyer objected to.
At the last sitting, Mr. Asiedu Nketia claimed that the petitioner was in court to challenge some actions and inactions of the Electoral Commission but not necessarily to seek the announcement of a different outcome of the polls.
“My Lord we are not in court to try to declare another presidential result by us [NDC], we are in court to challenge the performance of the constitutional duty of the first respondent [Chairperson of the Electoral Commission] and to assess whether that duty has been discharged faithfully,” he said.
