Justice Baah was not biased towards Anas — Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has held that it dismissed an application by investigator, Anas Aremeyaw Anas because his contention that a High Court judge was biased towards him is not supported by law.

Anas had filed a certiorari application at the apex court seeking the nullification of a High Court’s decision which dismissed his defamation suit against the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong.

The defamation suit was based on public statements made and a broadcast by the MP, accusing Anas of being evil and blackmailing people in the name of investigative journalism.

Anas’ grounds for the certiorari application challenging the judgment were that the trial judge – Justice Eric Baah, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, sitting as a High Court judge, had no jurisdiction to hear the suit and that the judge was also biased towards him.

On February 25 this year, the Supreme Court, in a 3-2 majority decision, dismissed the application and reserved the full reasoning in the judgment, which was later filed at the court’s registry, making it public.

The Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, Justices Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu and Samuel Asiedu were on the majority side, while Justices Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu and Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi dissented.

“Investigative terrorism”
In the High Court judgment dated March 15 last year, Justice Baah held that although the words spoken by Mr Agyapong against Anas were capable of defamation, they were factual and therefore, they could not be said to be defamatory as the defence of justification exonerated the MP.

Justice Baah then went ahead to make certain findings based on his analysis of the evidence before him and held that the MP was right in calling Anas “evil, blackmailer, an extortionist, criminal and corrupt.”

Again, the judge in the judgment described the work of Anas as “investigative terrorism” and not “investigative journalism.”