APPLICATION FOR COMMITTAL FOR CONTEMP
TIntroduction/Overview
[1] Ordinarily, the law must be obeyed, no matter the circumstances.
The learned(and one of the respected jurists in the Common Law tradition) Lord Denning MR in the case of BRADBURY v. ENFIELD LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL [1967] 1 W. L. R. 1311 @ 1324 stated that the law must be obeyed: “Even if chaos should result, still the law must be obeyed”. [2] Any conduct which interferes with or undermines the authority of the Courts and administration of justice is contempt of court.
Oswald in his classic, Contempt of Court 2nd Edition (1895) at page 6 opined that: “…. . Any conduct that tends to bring the authority and administration of the law into disrespect or disregards, or to interfere with or prejudice parties, litigants or their witnesses during litigation”. [3] In NATIONAL UNION OF SEAMEN v TUC [1982-83] GLR 943, it was held that: “a refusal or neglect to do an act required by a court order within a specified time or the disobedience to an order requiring a person to abstain from doing a specified act amounted to a civil contempt. ”[4] The power of the High Court to punish for contempt is provided in S. 10 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) and Articles 19(12) and 126 of the 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana. [5] It is instructive to note that Article 19 Clause 11 of the 1992 Constitution provides that no person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless the offence is defined and the penalty for it is prescribed in a written law.
However, the same Constitution, at Article 19(12), empowers the court to punish for contempt notwithstanding that the act or omission constituting it is not defined in a written law and the penalty thereof not so prescribed. [6] There is no codified legislation in Ghana that defines the act or omission that constitute the offence of contempt.
It therefore sounds to reason that Ghanaian courts resort to case law to resolve any issue regarding contempt when confronted with one. [7] What constitutes contempt has been considered in a legion of decided cases.
It was judicially articulated in IN RE: EFFIDUASE STOOL AFFAIRS (No. 2) EX PARTE AMEYAW II (1998-99) SCGLR 639 @ 660 where the Supreme Court speaking through ACQUAH JSC (as he then was) summed up the law in an apt and concise manner as follows: “In brief, contempt is constituted by any act or omissions tending to obstruct or interfere with the orderly administration of justice, or
