The Supreme Court will, on November 14, 2007, rule on an application filed by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) seeking to quash a High Court decision that absolved the former Minister of Transportation, Dr Richard Anane, of wrongdoing. The court fixed the date yesterday after it had listened to submissions made by counsel for the commission and Dr Anane in the case in which the former minister is battling to save his reputation which an Accra High Court restored when it cleared him of wrongdoing. The CHRAJ had appealed against the court's decision at the Court of Appeal, but while the appeal was pending, it went to the highest court of the land via the instant application to revoke the court's supervisory jurisdiction in the matter to quash the trial court's decision. Dr Anane resigned his post after the commission had found him guilty of abuse of power and conflict of interest and recommended that he be removed from office for abusing his office. Arguing the application at the Supreme Court yesterday, Nene Amegatcher, lead counsel for CHRAJ, said the effect of the application was to quash the trial court's decision that absolved Dr Anane of wrongdoing. He submitted that the trial judge had been invited to look at the true and proper construction of certain provisions in the 1992 Constitution that dealt with the functions of the commission and in the process of doing so the court went into an issue which was exclusively reserved for the Supreme Court. Based on that, he said, the application for certiorari was made before the court and if sustained then the Supreme Court ought to give directions to serve as a guide to other courts in the country. He said CHRAJ could only act when there was an identifiable complainant who must make a written complaint to the commissioner, saying that "our case is that on the true and proper interpretation of the Constitution and history and why CHRAJ was set up, it is not in all cases that we require a complaint". "There are a majority of issues which are in the public interest which need no formal complaint from any identifiable person," he explained. When asked by the court why the commission also assumed the role to interpret the Con¬stitution by what it did, counsel admitted that that was an error on the part of the commission. In a further question as to why the commission was asking the court to restore its decision, since that action was in clear violation of the Constitution, Nene Amegatcher replied that the commission had the power to handle the issue. Asked again what language was ambiguous and needed interpretation by the court, counsel quoted Article 218 (a) and (e) on the functions of the commission and stated that what constitut¬ed a complaint ought to be interpreted. He said the words "corruption" and' "abuse of power", for instance, had not been defined in the Constitution but they had been used in Article 218 (a) and he was of the belief that abuse of power could end up in corruption. According to counsel, the import of the articles in the Constitution talked about complaints of corruption and instances of alleged corruption and, therefore, clarification needed to be sought from' the highest court of the land as to the meaning to serve as a direction to the com¬mission. Nene Amegatcher agreed with the court that in the Dr Anane case, although no formal complaint was made to the commission in the cur¬rent democratic dispensation, allegations could be made even in the media. He said the trial judge, in purporting to interpret Article 287 (1) of the Constitution, misrepresented the issue and gave it a new meaning, instead of referring it to the Supreme Court. Mr J.K. Agyemang, 'counsel for Dr Anane, prayed the court to dismiss the application, since all the relevant provisions in Article 218 and 287 were quite clear and unambiguous. He argued that just as CHRAJ had the right to apply those provisions, the High Court judge also had every right to apply them and stated that the definition of corruption in the Constitution and elsewhere was irrelevant, more especially when his client had not been found guilty on those charges. The Supreme Court was presided over by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, with Mr Justice S.A Brobbey, Mr Justice S.K. Date-Bah, Mr Justice Julius Ansah and Mr Justice R.T. Aninakwah as the members. In his ruling, Mr Justice Baffoe-Bonnie had said CHRAJ was an inferior investigative body without inherent power and so its action was a wrong assumption of jurisdiction. Consequently, it ordered that the September 15, 2006 decision and subsequent recommendations against Dr Anane be removed from the register of the commission. According to the court, certain articles of the 1992 Constitution, such as Article 230 and Act 456, as well as C1 7, were binding on the com¬mission to require an identifiable complainant who should lodge a complaint, either in writing or orally. Source: Daily Graphic