Our recent judicial history alludes to an interesting spectacle – the incumbent president never meets his opposition counterpart in court, though both believe in the phrase “meet me in court”.
In the 2013 election petition, it was Candidate Akufo-Addo who was a punctual attendee of the court. He had little choice because he had an onerous task of praying the court to declare an election that saw his counterpart, president, null and void.
On the other hand, President Mahama as it were, attended to state affairs hence couldn’t have left those national assignments to appear in court. If my memory serves me right, he was absent all throughout proceedings.
Eight years on, on the first day of hearing of the 2020 petition brought against the EC and President Akufo-Addo, the Plaintiff Mahama was in attendance this time around, suited in red and blue-black colours. He was in the company of other party executives.
Candidate Akufo-Addo on the other hand was conspicuously missing this time around in a room he practically spent all his day in. I suspect it was for obvious reasons – state affairs. His absentia was also accompanied by a number of key party functionaries and former ministers.
The emphasis is mine, that had the President made it to this first hearing, it would’ve been recorded as unconventionally historic. He together with his opposite number, would’ve thrown the court into frenzy. It would’ve given yet another indication of his personal interest in the matter as well as heightened the general interest shown by the public.
However, the political hardliners will maintain the president’s absence was a show of the difference in current status between the two – an opposition leader who’s preoccupied in pursuing justice for unborn generations ; and a sworn-in president who must busy himself with the day to day running of a country and begin to worry about a possible ‘coup’ in parliament.
But again, ever thought of the two coming face-off in court one of these days?
CPD Post Credit: Kabu Nartey (Kabu-Nartey.com)