Supreme Court kicks Assin North MP out of parliament

Supreme Court kicks Assin North MP out of parliament as it orders the legislature to expunge Gyakye Quayson’s name.

The suspended National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North, James Gyekye Quayson, may suffer the fate of former New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Adamu Sakande who was jailed two years after being guilty found guilty of perjury and forgery.

Supreme Court kicks James Gyakye Quayson out

By a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court kicks James Gyakye Quayson out by ordering Parliament to expunge his name from the records as MP.

The verdict by the 7-member panel of the Supreme Court bars Mr. Quayson from holding himself as MP.

Before this verdict, his application for review of a decision regarding his criminal trial before an Accra High Court was also unanimously dismissed.

He filed an application for review seeking the Supreme Court to reverse the previous decision of a five-member panel ordinary bench not to prohibit Justice Mary Yanzuh, from presiding over his trial at the High Court.

The suspended MP is standing trial for five charges including perjury, making a false declaration and deceiving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by making a false statement that he did not have dual citizenship, in order to acquire a Ghanaian passport.

He has been charged with criminal offences in relation to his alleged dual nationality when he contested the 2020 parliamentary elections.

The Attorney-General (A-G) has dragged Mr Quayson to the Accra High Court on five counts of forgery of passport or travel certificate, knowingly making a false statutory declaration, perjury and false declaration for office.

It is the case of the A-G that Mr Quayson allegedly made a false statement to the Passport Office that he did not hold a passport to another country when he applied for a Ghanaian Passport.

In addition, the A-G has accused Mr Quayson of making a false declaration to the Electoral Commission (EC) to the effect that he (Quayson) did not owe any allegiance to a foreign country when he filed to contest as candidate for the Assin North seat.

Facts of the case

The brief facts of this case are that the accused person James Gyakye Quayson is the Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency.

The complainant, Richard Takyi-Mensah, is a teacher.

On July 26, 2019, the accused person signed an application form for a Republic of Ghana passport. In the application form, he indicated that he is a Ghanaian and does not have dual citizenship.

The accused at the time held Canadian citizenship issued on October 30, 2016, but failed to declare the same on the application form. The passport application of the accused person was vetted on July 29 2019.

Based on this false information and other information provided by the accused person on the passport application form, he was issued with a Ghanaian passport number G2538667 on August 2 2019.

Again, before the 2020 general elections of Ghana was conducted on December 7 2020, nominations were opened between the 5th and the 9th of October 2020.

The accused person picked up nomination forms to contest for the position of Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency.

The accused person at the time was a Ghanaian and a Canadian citizen, making him a dual citizenship holder.

Therefore, he was disqualified under Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana to be a Member of Parliament.

In part IV of the nomination forms of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, the accused person used a statutory declaration which he had sworn to on October 6 2020, before the District Court Registrar at Assin Fosu, stating that he does not owe allegiance to any country other than Ghana.

The accused person further went ahead to file his nomination forms on October 8 2020, with the false information in the statutory declaration.

Based on this false information and other information provided by the accused person in the nomination forms, his nomination was accepted by the Electoral Commission.

He contested for the position and subsequently won the seat. The accused person was issued a Certificate of Renunciation of his Canadian citizenship dated November 26 2020, about forty-eight days after making the false statutory declaration and filing his nomination forms.

On January 14 2021, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department received a petition dated January 11, 2021, from the complainant in which the complainant reported these actions of the accused, leading to investigations against him.

In his caution statement to the police, the accused person claimed that at the material time, he honestly believed that he did not owe allegiance to any other country.

The accused person was subsequently charged with the offences in the charge sheet.

It is based on these facts that the accused person, James Gyakye Quayson, has been arraigned for trial.”