The Chairman of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Constitutional and Legal Committee, Frank Davies, has questioned the rationale behind the adjournment of former Ashanti Regional NPP Chairman Bernard Antwi Bosiako’s (Wontumi) bail application to October.
The lawyer said the stipulated reason for trial judges sitting on select cases during the legal vacation is that those cases are considered important. According to him, a bail application is a “serious application,” as it concerns a person’s freedom.
“If you have a serious application like bail pending appeal, that is the essence of the vacation courts, to deal with such applications,” he said.
He said the case could have been adjourned to a shorter date say, the following week, or even to September and added that the trial judge, per her training, should have known better.
“Are there two different rights in this country, superior rights and lesser rights?” he asked, adding that only interim applications and urgent matters should be dealt with during a legal vacation.
Chairman Wontumi’s bail application, pending his appeal against the illegal mining conviction against him, was adjourned because the trial judge was indisposed.
The Deputy Attorney General, Justice Srem Sai, was present for the hearing, but Chairman Wontumi and his lawyers were absent.
Unable to sit that day, the judge adjourned the case to October 15.