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0 A senior political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has stated that Supreme Court judge Justice Emmanuel Yoni Kulendi should be subpoenaed to testify in the ongoing ambulance purchase trial.
Prof Gyampo’s comments follow the Supreme Court judge’s alleged involvement in a supposed meeting between the Attorney-General, Godfred Dame, and the third accused in the ambulance trial, Richard Jakpa.
According to him, it would be hypocritical if Justice Yoni Kulendi was not subpoenaed for his side of the story in the trial.
Mr Jakpa had accused the attorney general of attempting to influence him to testify against Dr. Ato Forson.
However, the office of the Attorney-General indicated that it was the third accused who ambushed Mr Dame at the residence of the Supreme Court judge.
A 16-minute audio recording of a phone conversation between Dame and Jakpa, released by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), also referred to Justice Kulendi, who is believed to be the third accused’s cousin.
Speaking on The Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, June 15, Prof. Gyampo underscored the importance of hearing the side of the Supreme Court judge in the interest of fairness and restoring confidence in the judicial process.
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“To hear that a whole Supreme Court judge was the one who was supposed to have summoned a certain meeting further lowers the goodwill and, like I said, the public confidence in the court processes and I’m of the view that we are all hypocrites if we cannot subpoena the Supreme Court judge [Justice Kulendi] to also tell Ghanaians or tell the court what he truly knows about this matter.
“So that we would be trying in the process to restore the confidence that people are losing in the court processes. I think that the challenges affecting the court processes now as a result of these things going on… and these things are further scandalizing the courts,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the High Court has admitted the audio recording between the third accused Richard Jakpa and Attorney-General Godfred Dame in the ambulance trial.
“High Court admits audio recording between Richard Jakpa and Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame into evidence,” TV3’s legal affairs correspondent, Laud Adu Asare who was in court on Thursday, June 13, reported.
The trial judge, Justice Efia Serwah Asare-Botwey on Thursday, June 6, dismissed the application for mistrial filed by lawyers of the first accused, Dr Ato Forson. She further noted that the tape did not reveal any instruction from Godfred Dame for Mr. Jakpa to implicate Ato Forson.
The court therefore set Thursday, June 13, to pronounce its judgement on the admissibility or otherwise of the leaked audio recording.
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