Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson, has expressed his trust and confidence in the country’s judicial system to handle the criminal charges brought against him.
According to him, the judicial system is the right medium to determine the veracity and merit of the case which he has been slapped with. Interacting with the media in Parliament today, Friday, February 11, 2022, Mr Gyakye Quayson indicated that he is in full spirit in spite of the criminal charges.
“I cannot actually comment on any matter that is in the court but I can tell you I am in a very high spirit. An innocent person has nothing to fear, that is all I can say. All I will say to you at this point is, as you are all aware, this matter is in court. I believe and trust in the Judicial system because that is the way for people to measure their innocence”.
James Gyakye Quayson
Mr Gyakye Quayson has been charged with forgery, perjury and also deceiving a public officer and knowingly making a false declaration. Court processes revealed that the state is equally pressing charges against him on forgery of passport or travel certificate and knowingly making a false statutory declaration.
NDC determined to expedite North Assin MP’s case
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has debunked claims that the Assin North MP is deliberately evading court processes. According to the NDC’s Director of Legal Affairs, Abraham Amaliba, the beleaguered legislator is simply ensuring that due process is complied with.
“It’s false because the rules of court necessitate that when a motion is filed and subsequently a reply is filed, there has to be a reply to some of the issues raised in the motion. We are given less than 7 days and that ruling is what we are contesting, so [we] have filed a review application of the decision of the court to give us a lesser number of days to file our response”.
Abraham Amaliba
Mr Amaliba noted that the delay is not occasioned by the accused and his team as they are interested in ensuring that the case goes on. He intimated that the delay is “occasioned by the court’s own decision” to shortchange their time period.
“We decided that we will come by a review so that the court will give us more time to file our responses and so there’s no delay here. We are going by the rules of the court”.
Abraham Amaliba
It will be recalled that a Cape Coast High Court in July 2021, ruled that Mr Quayson cannot hold himself as an MP since he held dual citizenship at the time he filed to contest the polls. This falls in line with Article 94(2)(a) of Ghana’s constitution that says a person shall not be qualified to be a Member of Parliament if he owes allegiance to a country other than Ghana.
The state contends that although his Ghanaian passport application form was vetted on 29th July 2019, he was issued with a Ghanaian passport (number G2538667) on 2nd August 2019 based on the false information together with other pieces of information he provided.
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