President John Mahama has said he does not know what purpose would have been served if the three Montie FM contemnors – Salifu Maase, alias Mugabe, Alistair Tairo Nelson, and Godwin Ako Gunn – had served the remaining three months of their prison sentences handed down by the Supreme Court.
Mr Mahama on Monday 22nd August remitted the four-month prison sentence handed to the three, who were convicted of contempt by the Supreme Court.
This was after a petition signed by top government officials and NDC functionaries was presented to the president asking him to pardon the three, who are affiliated to the ruling party. The petition was received by the president and forwarded to the Council of State for advice. The Council of State in turn recommended the application of the president’s prerogative of mercy under article 72 to remit the sentence.
A statement signed by the Minister of Communications on Monday, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, said that the President had taken the decision to pardon the three on “compassionate grounds” given the remorse they had demonstrated.
“The decision of His Excellency the President to remit their sentences on compassionate grounds follows a petition submitted to him by the contemnors appealing to the President to exercise his prerogative of mercy even as they continue to express deep remorse and regret for the unacceptable statements they made against the Judiciary,” the statement said.
This act of the president created a huge uproar among a section of Ghanaians with several people criticising his decision. Some lawyers deemed it a slap in the face of the Judiciary.
But speaking on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana on Tuesday September 6, Mr Mahama said: “I think that the overriding consideration must be that all arms of government must act constitutionally and I swore an oath on the 7th of January, 2013 to abide by the Constitution and so every action I take must be in consonance with the constitutional provisions.”
He continued: “The young men who were called before the Supreme Court for contempt (and) for scandalising the court, even before they were called before the court, they had shown remorse and apologised for what they said. Before the court, they apologised again. When they were sentenced in mitigation, they asked for mercy and apologised, retracted everything that they said, and even after they were sentenced and left the court and went to prison they still, in written and in verbal form, expressed absolute regret for what they did.
“I don’t know what benefit it would have been to anybody [with] the three extra months in prison. I don’t know but certainly I abided rigorously by Article 72. I received the petition from the lawyers of the three and they stated all the grounds for which they thought that I should invoke my powers under Article 72, narrating every step of the way the regret they had shown and pleading for mercy and so I did exactly what the constitution said I should do. I referred it to the Council of State and the Council of State came back to me and recommended that I exercise my powers under (Article) 72 not in terms of pardoning them. They remain convicted… They paid GHS 30,000 in fines; that money is in the state’s coffers. But what I did was, instead of letting them spend four months in prison, they spent one month in prison.
“Indeed, if you look at the conviction and the sentencing, the general consensus was that four months was quite a harsh punishment to have imposed for that kind of crime; I believe I acted constitutionally and it was in the interest for Ghana.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
