Justice Amos Wuntah Wuni, the judge presiding over the contempt case involving Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, MP, Assin Central, was asked by the Supreme Court to discontinue hearing of the case because of some comments he had made.
Justice Yonny Kulendi explained that, the judge’s comments showed his mind was made up on the case even before the MP would open his defence and this, the Supreme Court prohibits.
The High Court judge summoned the Assin Central MP to answer charges of contempt for allegedly going on live television to use unprintable words on him.
Speaking publicly about why he wrote that unanimous opinion of the court, Justice Kulendi said in a JoyNews report monitored by GhanaWeb that:
“The simple reason for which we prohibited him from hearing the case was that the Judge said, ‘you come, and prove that you are not in Contempt of this court otherwise you will be severely punished’.”
“Now for me as a judge, it means that this judge has already made up his mind about the degree of punishment you’re going to suffer. A judge is not allowed to do that.”
He said, the Supreme Court on that occasion was not determining the guilt or otherwise of Kennedy Agyapong.
“We were not supposed to determine whether he was guilty of contempt or not, we were supposed to determine whether the judge who was trying him for contempt, had conducted himself in a way, said or written things, which showed that he had lost an impartial judicial mind to be fair to the man who was standing before him.”
The Supreme Court had unanimously ordered that the contempt case against Kennedy Agyapong be transferred to a different Judge.
This is because Justice Amos Wuntah Wuni was prohibited from hearing the matter any further after lawyers for the MP had accused the Judge of demonstrating hostility towards them.
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong on September 18, 2020, filed for a review application at the Supreme Court to stop contempt proceedings against him and also quash the order of summons for him to appear before the court as the High Court had no jurisdiction to do so.
