Lawyers of the former Secretary of the defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue has managed to secure an order from the Accra Human Rights Court restraining the Office of the Special Prosecutor or its agents from carrying out any arrest warrant on their client.
The Court presided over by Justice Nicholas Abodakpi also ordered the Special Prosecutor to stop requesting additional warrants and disseminating notices claiming the applicant should be arrested while the main substantive case filed by Mr. Bissue is still not being decided.
The order from the Court lasts for 10 days while the case has been adjourned to 22nd June 2023.
Mr. Bissue lawyers this morning (June 15) urged the High Court to injunct the OSP.
“That by failing to make available a copy of the Petition and for that matter, the particulars of the complaint forming the basis of the investigation for which the Ist Respondent (OSP) had invited the Applicant, the 1st Respondent is acting in a manner which is unfair, unreasonable and unlawful and thus, contrary to the provisions of the aforementioned L.I. 2374 and Article 23 of the Constitution 1992.
“That the Applicant was reliably informed some time on or around the 7th of June 2023, that the 1st Respondent had applied to the 2nd Respondent and had been granted an Arrest Warrant against him, notwithstanding the fact that the aforementioned Motion for Interlocutory Injunction remained pending.”
Lead counsel Nana Adjei Awuah also told the court the OSP had issued a notice declaring his client wanted.
He argued that since his client has not been charged, such a notice had no legal standing.
“That notwithstanding the pendency of the Motion for Injunction seeking to restrain the 1st Respondent from executing the purported Arrest Warrant, the 1st Respondent has proceeded to declare the Applicant as Wanted in a Notice widely published in the media on 13th June 2013. Annexed hereto and marked as Exhibit “Q” is a copy of the said Notice declaring the Applicant Wanted.
That the said Notice is not only illegal as same is a product of an Arrest Warrant procured contrary to the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure)Act, 1960 (Act 30) but also the application for an Arrest Warrant by the 1st Respondent and the grant of same by the 2nd Respondent was in breach of Article 23 of the Constitution, 1992.
That the said Notice by the 1st Respondent is in wide circulation and could be executed any second by the 1st Respondent.”That the said Notice by the 1st Respondent is in wide circulation and could be executed any second by the 1st Respondent.
That in the circumstances, the aforesaid Arrest Warrant granted by the 2nd Respondent to the 1st Respondent out of which the said Notice has been produced, ought to be quashed or cancelled.”
