Court to rule on Dr Anane's suit against Commission on Human Rights

KOJO's DIARY

THE Accra Fast Track High Court yesterday fixed March 15, 2007 for its ruling in the case in which the former Minister of Transportation, Dr Richard Anane, is seeking an order to quash the decision of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) against him.
That was after the court, presided over by Mr Justice P. Baffoe-Bonnie, a Court of Appeal judge with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, heard arguments put up by counsel for Dr Anane and CHRAJ.
On September 15, 2006, CHRAJ, in its ruling after investigating allegations of corruption, perjury and conflict of interest against the former minister, recommended, among other things, Dr Anane’s removal from office for committing perjury.
The commission, however, dismissed charges of corruption against him but found him guilty of lying under oath after he had told a panel constituted by CHRAJ that he remitted $30,000 to his mistress.
In a prior testimony to the Parliamentary Select Committee during his vetting as Roads and Transport Minister in 2005, the former minister told members that he had only remitted $10,000 to his mistress.
Following the CHRAJ report and public agitation, Dr Anane honourably resigned his post before he could be sacked by the President.
Dr Anane, however, on September 22, 2006, filed a motion at the Fast Track High Court for an order of certiorari to quash the CHRAJ decision and the respondent accordingly filed an affidavit in opposition.
The lead counsel for Dr Anane, Mr J.K. Agyemang, urged the court to quash the CHRAJ decision because the commission, in purporting to deal with Dr Anane, lacked jurisdiction and, therefore, acted in breach of the 1992 Constitution, Act 546, the CHRAJ Act 1993 and Constitutional Instrument (CI) 7.
According to counsel, the jurisdiction and mandate of CHRAJ as an inferior investigative body was clearly set but the commission failed to observe both constitutional and statutory provisions which specified its functions and went outside to arrogate to itself what had not been prescribed.
He said Article 230 of the Constitution, Act 456 and CI 7, for example, directed what had to be done by way of procedure on receiving complaints and the investigation of any such complaint.
Counsel said by those provisions, a complaint was vital to the commission’s work and ought to be made, either in writing or orally, to the national office of CHRAJ or its representative at the district level.
“It expects somebody to make a complaint to the commission or its representative in any of the regional or district offices and where a complaint is made in writing, it shall be signed by the complainant or his agent,” he stated.
Mr Agyemang further stated that where a complaint was made orally, the person to whom it was made should reduce it into writing before the complainant and a CHRAJ official appended their signatures to it.
In the instant case, counsel said there had been no complaint or complainant and said if the commission could make its complaint and investigate it, Parliament would not have elaborated on its functions.
He said for CHRAJ to state that it did not require any complaint to undertake its investigation offended the clear provisions in CI 7 and Act 456 and that gave the commission room to rely on newspaper reports and anonymous complaints or people who hid behind the scenes to lodge spurious complaints.
“Even people who cannot read and write have their oral complaints reduced into writing by the CHRAJ officer who receives it”, he noted, and stated that anything short of that meant the commission acted as a complainant, an investigator and a prosecutor at the same time which should not be the case.
He said the commission infringed on the Constitution in purporting to deal with Dr Anane, adding that on the issue of perjury, it did not have jurisdiction because Dr Anane was not even invited to deal with any such complaint at the commission’s hearing but in its decision it concluded that he had lied on oath.
The lead counsel for the commission, Dr P. E . Bondzi-Simpson, in his response, described Dr Anane’s application as unmeritorious and ought to be dismissed.
He dismissed the assertion by counsel for the applicant that a complaint was always required before the commission could embark on any investigation, saying it did not act out of place because it could either initiate its own investigations or investigate complaints lodged before it.
“An identifiable complainant is not required to lodge a formal complaint,” he stated, and added that that would lead to frustration of the commission’s mandate.
Dr Bondzi-Simpson, however, conceded that in the Dr Anane case, there had been no formal complaint but said that did not mean there were no issues out there which the commission could not investigate.
He argued that the commission could investigate all the allegations against Dr Anane, despite the lack of a formal complaint.