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Election Petition: Hearing adjourned to Wednesday

Hearing of the election petition currently before the Supreme Court has been adjourned to Wednesday April 24.

The cross examination of Dr. Bawumia, once again, took center stage at the hearing on Tuesday.

Lawyer Tony Lithur, lead counsel for the first respondent, sought to discredit the testimony of Dr Bawumia by suggesting that the evidence submitted by the petitioners on over-voting were merely due to arithmetic and administrative errors. 

After several hours of cross examination, one of the judges however questioned the cross examination process adopted by the Lawyer Tony Lithur. 



Below is a timeline of some of the activities that happened in court 

17:15 – Supreme Court adjourns sitting to Wednesay April 24

16:53 – Tony Lithur suggests that an important part of cross examination; surprise, could be neutralized if the data is to be sent ahead to petitioners to expedite the hearing, as has been suggested by one of the Justices. 

16:40 – “I think the witness is being dishonest and i am putting that directly to him” – Tony Lithur to Philip Addison in court 

16:20 – Cross examination intensifies with more questions about the details on the pink sheets and the issues of over voting, double voting and wrongful entry of data. 

15:22 – Tony Lithur grabs a calculator to do some assessment of his own of the figures. 

15:20 – Cross examination of Dr Bawumia resumes as Tony Lithur questions him about the instances of over voting, administrative errors with regard data entry among others. 

14:20 – Court on short recess for lunch as Justice Atuguba intimates that “If we don’t go for lunch break, it could affect clarity of thinking.”

13:40 – Cross examination continues with Lawyer Tony Lithur questioning Dr Bawumia about the veracity of some of the data presented in court. 

13:23 – Tony Lithur states, ” Doc, i put it to you that every case of over voting is attributable to administrative errors” 

Dr Bawumia responds: “That is not possible, my Lords.” 

13:15 – Court overrules the objection raised by the counsel of the petitioners about the line of questioning of Tony Lithur. 

Tony Lithur is suggesting that Dr Bawumia’s comments run contrary to assertions by Mr Boakye Adjarko about the conduct of the elections in the initial stages.

12:54 – Members of the 1st respondent’s team grab the calculator and compute the figures independently.

12:52 – “Yes Counsel, the was over voting,” Dr Bawumia states after calculating the figures. 

He tells the court that independent calculation of the figures is thus required, as they (petitioners) did, to find all the necessary loopholes and gaps in the data set. 


12:50 – Dr Bawumia grabs a calculator to compute some figures. 

Questions relating to over voting is currently dominating the proceedings. 

12:32 – “Was the EC a voter in the election?” – Tony Lithur questions. 

“Have i said EC is a voter?” – Dr Bawumia retorts 

12:30 – The Supreme Court hearing the election case has resumed hearing after an over one hour break 

11:15 – Court on short recess after request by Tony Lithur.

11:12 – Lawyer Tony Lithur requests for a short recess for the tabulation of some data required for the cross examination. 

“Some of the sheets are ineligible,” complains Tony Lithur about some of the data available. 

10:50 – Dr Bawumia requests that he wants to refresh his memory on the evidence submitted because he feels the data being presented him to answer questions on have been deleted from their initial data set. 

10:30 – Tony Lithur is questioning Dr Bawumia about the data represented on some of the pink sheets. 

He is questioning the reason why some pink sheets are considered as contributing to over voting by the petitioners. 

10:20 – Dr Bawumia takes the witness box as cross examination begins. 

10:15 – Counsels for the petitioners and respondents in the election petition introduce their teams. 

Another day of cross examination lies ahead. 

Background 
Lawyers for the first respondent in the election petition case before the Supreme Court will continue the cross examination of NPP Vice Presidential Candidate in the 2012 election Dr. Mahamdu Bawumia. 

Lead Counsel Tony Lithur in his cross examination yesterday sought to discredit Dr. Bawumia’s evidence of over voting, voting without biometric verification among others. 

The panel of judges hearing the election petition on Monday rejected a request by the lawyers for the respondents for a full audit of the pink sheets submitted by the petitioners saying a recount would not affect the case for now. 

According to the lawyers, since the second petitioner, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia admitted during cross-examination that some of the pink sheets were duplicated, there was the need for an audit.

Lead Counsel for the second petitioner also accused lawyers for the first respondent of “falsifying by photocopying” pink sheets in an attempt to deceive the court. 

The petitioners in the case are seeking to have the results of the 2012 elections which declared President Mahama as the winner, annuled.
 

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