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Tsikata is ready to go to jail if his appeal against the June 18 sentence fails
Audrey Micah, Ghanadot

Accra, Feb 6, Ghanadot - The former Chief Executive of the GNPC, Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata has stated that the ‘law on wilfully causing financial loss to the state’ is unconstitutional. According to him, the law is unconstitutional because it lacks definition by written law and is contrary to Article 19 (11) of the constitution which says "No person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless the offence is defined and the penalty for it is prescribed in a written law.

He therefore believes that the law that convicted him should not be left on the statute books as it should never had been applied in any case.

The former GNPC boss said causing financial loss "is not a crime that is defined by reference to written law so the terms of that law are not defined by written law".

But highest court of the land, the Supreme Court, does not share the same view with Mr. Tsikata and has already accepted the constitutionality of the law.

The former GNPC boss who was slapped with a five-year jail term for causing financial loss to the state disclosed that the decision of the Supreme Court is unfortunate because "you don’t seek the definition of crimes in dictionaries…some judges have done that but that is not what our constitution says".

He added that "The Supreme Court itself has made reference to dictionaries or has supported the use of these dictionaries to define the law."

Mr.Tsikata said he is arguing against the use of dictionaries because they often have a variety of meanings to certain expressions, and that resorting to the use of dictionaries to define crimes will leave people uncertain as to what exactly their offenses are.

To him, crime "should be something very definite and clear so that whoever is going to be prosecuted knows what he was being held liable for."

e rejected suggestions that he was just being a litigant persistiing to  going back to court after former president Kufuor had granted him an absolute pardon.  Tsikata insisted in response that it was important for him to clear his name by using the courts to remove the criminal conviction against him.

Mr, Tsikata also explained that the need to also ensure that leaders do not use their power to arbitrarily imprison people only to later pardon them is another reason that motivated him to go back to court.

He however stated that he is prepared to go to jail if his appeal for the June 18 sentence by Justice Henrietta Abban to revoke fails.

Micah Audrey




 

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