News:
August 23, 2016
A member of the legal team of the jailed Montie FM three, c, has commended President John Mahama for remitting the sentences of his clients.
Mr Loh told Joy News the President has acted appropriately.
“The President has acted rightly. We are grateful to the President and also to the members of the Council of State for acting in line with the petition we submitted and hearing our cry and our prayer,” he said.
President Mahama on Monday remitted the four-month sentence given the three, Alistair Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn and Salifu Maase, alias Mugabe, who have already served one month of their sentence.
Godwin Ako Gunn and Alistair Nelson scandalized the court when they threatened to rape and murder judges during a political talk show on a pro-NDC radio station, Montie FM.
Mugabe, moderator of the political talk show, fueled the hate comments according to the court.The trio believed the Supreme Court did not rule justly when it ordered the Electoral Commission to delete names of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card registrants from the electoral roll.
The NHIS card had been ruled out as legitimate proof of citizenship by the Court in an earlier ruling.
A statement signed by the Minister of Communication, Edward Omane Boamah, said the President’s decision to remit the sentences of the contemnors was taken firmly in consultation with the Council of State.
“The decision of His Excellency the President to remit their sentences on compassionate grounds follows a petition submitted to him by the contemnors appealing to the President to exercise his prerogative of mercy even as they continue to express deep remorse and regret for the unacceptable statements they made against the Judiciary,” the statement said.
Meanwhile another member of the legal team of the three convicts says his clients deserved the pardon, despite widespread criticism of the President’s pardon as a usurpation of the Judiciary’s powers.
Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe says “Like any Ghanaian, we are entitled to this prerogative of mercy and the President had to exercise it.”
“The action taken by the President cannot in the remotest sense by any shred of legal reasoning or imagination amounts to a slap in the face of the judiciary,” he adds.