Although justice delayed is justice denied, the Attorney-General must also note regarding the daily trial of Assin North Member of Parliament James Gyakye Quayson that justice hurried is justice buried, an Associate Professor at the University of Ghana School of Law, Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atuah has said.
Prof Appiagyei-Atuah indicated that the daily trial is affecting the lawmaker from carrying out his parliamentary duties.
This, in his view, raises questions about fairness in the trial process.
His comments come after Deputy Attorney-General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah said that the prosecution and the judge are not rushing the trial of Gyakye Quayson.
Tuah-Yebuah explained the trial judge has the latitude in how this case should be handled.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 Wednesday, July 19, he said “I do not see any rush in this particular matter. This matter is before a court of law and every judge has the latitude as to how he or she may want to handle the case.
“In this particular case, the judge made an order that she is going to hear the matter today. In the subsequent proceedings, she made it clear that even if it is daily it doesn’t mean that every day he should be in court.
“There may times where the court may not even sit, there may times where the counsel for either the accused or the accused may be absent or the accused himself may be out. For example, on the very day that he was sworn in, because of that the court could not go on.
“We were in court today and the matter has been adjourned to next week Wednesday so this noise about day-to-day hearing and making comments as if the judge is trying to hound the accused person, is something that I cannot understand.
“If you go to the other courts in Accra, in some of the courts they go to court three times or sometimes four times a week and so I do see any difference between those accused persons and this accused person.”
Prof Appiagyei-Atuah replied him on the same show that the daily trial is “certainly going to affect him and so on that basis, fairness is not in there.”
An Accra High Court on Tuesday, July 18 dismissed the stay proceedings application of Mr Quayson to stop his criminal trial until the outcome of the appeal at the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
This allowed for cross-examination of the prosecution’s first witness to take place.
But one of the lawyers of Mr Quayson, Abraham Amaliba questioned the credibility of the prosecution’s first witness in the criminal trial of Mr Quayson.
“He swore an oath that his statement was written in English [but] it turned out that when he was shown his own statement he spoke in Twi and it was recorded, that goes to the credibility of the witness, that goes to his mindset.
“So clearly, you notice that the prosecution witness was not helpful to the prosecution at all,” he told journalists after the court hearing on Tuesday, July 18.