If the Council of State advises President John Dramani Mahama to free the three Montie FM convicts: Alistair Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn and Salifu Maase (Mugabe) who were sentenced to a four-month jail term for scandalising the Supreme Court and bringing its name into disrepute, then such counsel will be described as unwise, Professor Kwame Karikari, a former Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), has said.
President Mahama has forwarded the petitions he received from lawyers of the contemnors to the Council of State for advice. Several supporters and members of the NDC, including Ministers of State, also signed a different petition to pile pressure on Mr. Mahama to exercise his prerogative of mercy authority under Article 72 of the 1992 Constitution to pardon the convicts.
The Council of State has acknowledged receipt of the petition from the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, who did the presentation on behalf of the president.
But speaking in an interview on Wednesday, Prof Karikari said: “Though the courts have charged and convicted these people on contempt, we think that it is larger than the issue of contempt, if you are talking about the issues that this radio station (Montie FM) and these people have been involved in.”
“So, we are hoping that the Council of State will provide the wisdom that that institution is supposed to exhibit and to advise the president on. We are hoping that they will be level-headed enough and not behave as if they are an appendage to a political party, and that they are members of an institution that is supra-political party. That is what we can hope for.
“And [we] hope that they will not come out to advise the president in, my estimation, wrongfully because what is going on appears to be really blackmailing the president. There are people who are saying: ‘If you don’t do this, we won’t vote for you.’ You will not vote for a president because he has not pardoned somebody who has threatened the lives of public officers? So, we are hoping that the Council of State will come out with a perspective that will bring sanity to the atmosphere.
“It is unfortunate that the misdeeds of people who have no regard to ethics of journalism, to good manners of public speech, will bring this country to such a brink of a crisis of sorts. It is unfortunate that leaders of a ruling political party will provoke tension between the executive and the judiciary.
It is quite unfortunate and I do hope that the Council of State, being what it is and what it is supposed to be, will help bring sanity in this whole atmosphere, which is really a great and useless diversion of our attention from important national issues.
“I can only hope that the Council of State will be as wise as they are expected to be. If they advise the president to go ahead and release these people, I will consider that to be very unwise advice to the president by an institution that is supposed to be…wise.”
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