The Supreme Court has dismissed an application filed by undercover journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, requesting for a judgement passed by an Accra High Court to be quashed.
This follows an earlier application at the apex court, requesting for the nullification of the High Court’s dismissal of his defamation suit against the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene-Agyapong.
In a ruling on March 15, 2023, the High Court presided over by Justice Eric Baah, a Court of Appeal judge sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge, dismissed the case for lacking merit.
The judge had added that although the words spoken against Anas were factual and capable of defamation, he could not prove same.
“From the above, I hold that the plaintiff is a blackmailer who uses blackmail to extort money from his opponents and people he does not like.
“What the plaintiff is doing is not investigative journalism but investigative terrorism,” the presiding judge, who awarded cost of GH¢50,000 against Anas had said.
Subsequently, Mr. Aremeyaw Anas filed an application at the Supreme Court to quash the judgment of the High Court.
The investigative journalist explained that the grounds for the application were based on “absence of jurisdiction” by the sitting judge and the “apparent or real likelihood of bias and impartiality on the part of the judge”.
But in a 3-2 majority decision, a five-member panel of the apex court presided over by the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, dismissed the certiorari application.
The Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, Justices Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu and Samuel Asiedu were on the majority side, while Justices Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu and Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi dissented.
The five-member panel also upheld the previous ruling by the High Court.
However, despite requests from Kennedy Agyapong’s lawyer for costs to be awarded against Anas, the Supreme Court declined to do so.
Source: myjoyonline.com
