Supreme Court To Decide On Gyakye Quayson’s Fate As ‘Assin North MP’ Next Week

The Supreme Court will next Wednesday, April 13, 2022, rule on the motion seeking to stop James Gyakye Quayson from holding himself out as the Member of Parliament for Assin North.

Arguing the motion before the 7-member Supreme Court panel on Tuesday, the lawyer for Michael Ankomah-Nimfah, Frank Davis, said his client has established grievous breaches of the 1992 Constitution, and the other electoral laws against the disputed MP.

Mr. Frank Davis told the Court the people of Assin North have been saddled with an unqualified person who should not have been in Parliament.

But Lead Counsel for Mr. Gyakye Quayson, Tsatsu Tsikata, who had raised a preliminary objection to the motion, argued that the Supreme Court rules did not provide for such motions and that the applicant should have sought leave from the Supreme Court to allow him to bring the motion.

Counsel for the Electoral Commission, the second defendant in the matter, Emmanuel Addae, opposed the motion for interlocutory injunction.

He argued before the Court that the High Court has already determined the matter in its July 2021 Judgment; and that the applicants should go back and execute that judgment.

The Court will, on Wednesday, thus pronounce to remove Mr. James Gyakye Quayson as Assin North Member of Parliament, or not, or to direct the applicants to execute the High court Judgment against Mr. James Gyakye Quayson.

This decision firmly rests on the shoulders of Justices Jones Dotse, as Court President, Agnes Dordzie, Nene Amegatcher, Prof. Henrietta Mensah Bonsu, Mariama Owusu, Gertrude Torkornoo, and Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi

Background

The Cape Coast High Court in the Central Region had declared the 2020 parliamentary election held in the Assin North Constituency as null and void because Mr. Quayson breached the provisions of the constitution with regard to dual citizenship.

Mr. Quayson subsequently appealed the judgment, at the Court of Appeal in Cape Coast.

Article 94 (2) says a person shall not be qualified to be a member of Parliament if he owes allegiance to a country other than Ghana.

Michael Ankomah-Nimfa, a resident of Assin Bereku in the Central Region, filed a petition at the Cape Coast High Court seeking to annul the declaration of Mr. Quayson as the MP Assin North.

A group calling itself ‘Concerned Citizens of Assin North also petitioned the Electoral Commission in the Central Region to withdraw the candidature of Mr. Quayson, arguing that he owes allegiance to Canada.