The Supreme Court has dismissed an application for leave filed by the lawyers for John Dramani Mahama in the election petition case to serve interrogatories on the Electoral Commission (EC).
Mahama was seeking to compel the EC to provide answers to some questions known in legal parlance as interrogatories.
In law, interrogatories are a formal set of written questions propounded by one litigant and required to be answered by an adversary in order to clarify matters of fact and help to determine in advance what facts will be presented at any trial in the case.
Some of the information Mahama’s legal team led by Tsatsu Tsikata was seeking answers to included the manner in which the results of the 2020 presidential polls were transmitted and the level of involvement of the National Communications Authority (NCA) in the process.
But both the lawyers for the Electoral Commission and President Nana Akufo-Addo opposed the application.
They argued that John Mahama and his legal team were using the “back door” to seek further information from the EC that were not captured in their petition.
Mr. Akoto Ampaw, the lawyer for the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, described the application as a “fishing expedition”.
The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision dismissed the application.
According to the apex court, the interrogatories were irrelevant to the case.
It subsequently set tomorrow, Wednesday, January 20, 2021, for case management.
Mahama is in court after he and his party –the National Democratic Congress– rejected the results of the 2020 presidential polls.
Mr. Mahama, the NDC’s presidential candidate in the 2020 polls, is of the view that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo failed to obtain the requisite number of votes to be declared the winner.
He is thus asking the Supreme Court to among other things declare the 2020 presidential polls nul and void and further order the Electoral Commission to conduct a re-run of the election between himself and President Akufo-Addo.
