[ 2016-11-30 ]

Judge recuses herself in Journalists case
Human Rights Court Judge, Justice Gifty Adjei
Addo, has recused herself from sitting on the case
filed by President of the International Standards
Journalist Association (ISJA) against the
Electoral Commission in which he is challenging
the electoral management body’s request for
journalists to pay a fee of for their
accreditation to cover the 7 December elections.

According to her, since she gave an earlier ruling
against ISJA on the same issue, it was best to
refer the case to the Chief Justice to transfer
the case to another judge.

On Tuesday, 29 November the court dismissed the
ISJA suit against the EC. At Tuesday’s hearing,
counsel for the EC, Mr Thaddeus Sory, argued that
ISJA failed to properly invoke the jurisdiction of
the court because the suit should have been filed
by way of an application and not a writ of
summons.

He argued that the suit bordered on fundamental
human rights and hence it was not supposed to be
initiated through a writ of summons.

It is recalled that the EC announced that due to
logistical constraints, media houses were to pay
GHS10 for the printout of media accreditation
cards to enable them cover the elections.

However, the decision did not go down well with
some media stakeholders such as ISJA which
resorted to the court for redress.

President of ISJA, Nana Oppong after the case had
been dismissed, filed a new suit challenging the
EC’s decision to charge accreditation fee this
time in his private capacity.

Source - Classfmonline

... go Back