Minority leader and MP for the Efutu Constituency, Honorable Alexander Kwamena Afenyo Markin, has seen his defamation suit against the Chief Executive Officer of the Gold Bod, Mr. Samuel Gyamfi thrown out by the Accra High Court’s General Jurisdiction 1.
The defamation suit was filed by the minority leader on August 24th after he was labeled an “extortionist” by Mr. Gyamfi on various radio and television platforms notably News file which airs on the Joy News channel hosted by Samson Lardi Ayenini.
In the ruling of the Court, its jurisdiction could not be properly invoked because it found the writ of summons incurably defective and incompetent. This decision according to the Court was arrived at by citing and relying on Coleman vs Newmont on the applicable procedural rules and Owusu Domena on the need to raise objections promptly which in simple term means that the action cannot proceed under a defective writ.
The ruling by the Court however does not amount to a conclusion of whether or not it finds the CEO of the Gold Bod Mr. Sammy Gyamfi guilty or innocent of defamation.
The minority leader in his defamation suit was demanding damages to the tune of GHS 15,000,000 and a public apology and retraction on all platforms where Mr. Gyamfi had described him as an “extortionist”.
The comments by Mr. Gyamfi followed a series of media engagements where the minority leader and members of the minority caucus in parliament raised concerns about an amount of $1 billion which had been lost by the Gold Bod through the Bank Of Ghana’s (BOG) Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.
The suit filed by the minority leader also named the Multimedia Group Limited on whose platform the comments were made as a defendant.
Addressing the media after the Court ruling, lawyers for Mr. Gyamfi said the minority leader in his writ failed to endorse the alleged defamatory statements made by the defendant while urging the two parties to find a middle ground out of court.
Reacting to the ruling by the High Court, the minority leader shared a post on his Facebook wall which read ” the Mills of Justice grinds slowly”.
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