The New Patriotic Party and the ruling National Democratic Congress on Friday carried their political rivalry into the Accra Fast Track High Court, yielding several friendly jibes that served to liven up the hearing of the injunction application by two NPP members seeking a later date for their October 18 congress.
The suit by Messrs Rexford Agyei Frimpong and Oppong Kyekyeku, said to be members of the NPP but whose claim has been disputed by the party, will be decided on October 3, 2014.
The two say the party’s constitution will be breached if the congress to elect a flagbearer goes ahead because notices served for the purpose fall short of the six months duration required by the party constitution.
Counsel for the applicants, Mr. Eric Kwame Atieku was on his feet pleading his clients’ case when sudden, hushed protests by Godfred Yeboah Dame, lead counsel for the NPP, and lawyer Samuel Atta Akyea, who was in court over another matter, drew attention to the ‘role’ of Mr. David Annan, a lawyer of the NDC stock.
He was whispering some advice to Eric Atieku, who was justifying the interest of his clients in the suit.
The murmured protests however, were loud enough to catch the attention of Justice Mustapha Habib Logoh, presiding, who laughing it off, asked if it was no longer tenable to whisper at the bar.
“Can’t we whisper anymore at the Bar? Please allow”, he counselled as he laughed, saying it was the norm for lawyers to come to the aid of their colleagues from time to time.
Soon it was the turn of Godfred Dame to make his case for the suit to be thrown out, and while he argued that a petition the applicants claim to have sent to the party to seek redress over their grievance but which was ignored could have been an afterthought, Atta Akyea moved to whisper some counsel of his own to him. That action also came to the attention of the judge whose intervention sent the courtroom laughing.
“You see, I prophesied it and I was thinking he would resist the temptation but you see”, Justice Logoh teased Atta Akyea as the courtroom burst into laughter.
As the hearing progressed, counsel Godfred Dame poked Eric Atieku how the latter thought he could better interpret the NPP constitution when he was not a member of the party.
“I am doing my professional work by representing my clients”, he responded, and wondered if the bar was being partitioned between the two parties. In that case, he said, they could break the bar into two, one for the NDC and the other for the NPP.
“Are you NDC?” Godfred Dame teased, to which Atieku responded, “I have not denied that”, bringing in Justice Logoh who entreated Atieku not to mind his accuser.
“My Lord I won’t have come here in the first place if I wanted to mind them,” he said, kicking up some more laughter in the filled courtroom.
