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April 28, 1971
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
JUDGMENT OF MENSA BOISON J.
This is an appeal from the decision of the District Court Grade II, Agona, presided over by Mr. Eric Piesare. By his decision dated 13 January 1971, the magistrate purported to have convicted the appellant for contempt of court in facie curiae and to have sentenced him to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. On 2 April I allowed the appeal and reserved reasons which I now proceed to give.
[p.31]
The conviction is wholly indefensible and it is a matter of a great regret that the patently wrong view taken by the magistrate of his jurisdiction had condemned the appellant to an imprisonment of nigh three months before the hearing of the appeal. To start with the district court is a creation of statute, namely the Courts Decree, 1966 (N.L.C.D. 84), with particular reference to paragraph 46 thereof. It follows that it exercises only that jurisdiction conferred upon it by that decree as provided particularly by paragraphs 49, 50 and 51. As a rule no act is punishable by a district court unless a certain statute prohibits the doing of the act by the citizen, and the court is given jurisdiction to try that offence.
The complaint of the magistrate was that he took exception to the rude behaviour of the appellant in interfering with a proceeding at a locus in quo in the trial of a motor offence in the case of Republic v. Afriyie. The appellant was neither a party nor a witness in that case, but he had continually made utterances, despite repeated warnings from the magistrate. It appears as a result of that the appellant was summarily arraigned before the court when it re-assembled in the court room, on a charge of contempt of court, namely: "interfering with proceedings of the court." The statement of offence on the charge sheet did not state the section creating the offence. No doubt the magistrate found none and this should have put him on his inquiry. In failing to state the section creating the offence the magistrate infringed section 112 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1960 (Act 30), which requires reference to the enactment creating the offence in the statement of offence to be given, if the offence is one created by an enactment.
What actually took place in court has hardly been known in the annals of legal history, in that from start to finish the accused was never heard in his defence or asked to show cause why. This is how the record goes: "Charge: contempt of court. Accused present. Corporal Opoku for prosecution
AI Generated Summary
Justice Mensa Boison reviewed and allowed an appeal from the District Court Grade II at Agona, presided over by Magistrate Eric Piesare, which had summarily convicted a non-party for contempt in facie curiae and imposed two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The contempt arose when the appellant allegedly interfered with proceedings at a locus in quo during Republic v. Afriyie. The appellate court held the magistrate exceeded his statutory jurisdiction: the charge sheet failed to reference any statutory provision as required by section 112(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Act 30), and the court tried and convicted without taking a plea or hearing the accused, violating section 171. More fundamentally, Article 102(5) of the Second Republic Constitution reserves the power to commit for contempt to the Superior Court of Judicature, not district courts. The trial was declared null and void, and the conviction and sentence were quashed, with an order for discharge and acquittal.