'Addison Is Wasting The Time Of The Court' - Tsatsu Tsikata

Counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, has pleaded the Supreme Court hearing the ongoing election petition not to entertain the line of cross examination being done by lead counsel for the petitioners, Mr Philip Addison. He told the court, Tuesday that Mr Addison was wasting the time of the court in his attempt to make arguments on matters of irrelevances in his cross examination. According to him, �there are substantive issues that this case is about. The time of this court is being wasted because matters that have not been pleaded, have not been put in evidence in anyway are suddenly being put up.� He made these pleadings when Mr Addison, in his seventh day of cross examining the second respondent, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, presented tamper evidence envelopes as evidence to the court and according to Mr Tsikata, Mr Addison�s line of cross examination was not �consistent" with the clear directions that the Justices had given about the conduct of the case. He said they had not received any pleadings that reflected on the temper evidence envelopes which contained election materials as being part of the case that was before the court. �We are finding ourselves in the difficulty that in this cross examination all matter of irrelevancies is essentially being introduced into a case that is very far advanced. If the petitioners want to amend their case, in order to make bags that are in use and that they have some claims about, if serial numbers about the bag are going to be a new issue in this case, we need to know it.� �At this stage, we really believe that the time of this court is being wasted, respectfully. The time of this court is being wasted because matters that have not been pleaded, they have not been put in evidence in any way are suddenly being put,� Mr Tsikata added. He respectfully prayed the court not to entertain Mr Addison�s line of cross examination because it was not consistent with the bench�s directives in the conduct of cross examination. Counsel for the first respondent, Mr Tony Lithur sought to associate himself with Mr Tsikata�s argument. Standing on his feet, Mr Addison said he would not respond to the first and third respondent�s arguments. He also wondered why the first and third respondents were making presentations on the issue since the court had ruled a couple of times that they could not make such observations.