Court. Was. Cool.

Tony, the husband of my boss, Nana, is a partner in a law firm here and very kindly invites us interns to come to court with him when there's stuff to see. He is the former First Lady's attorney, and was arguing a motion in court this morning. Anyway, he was running late this morning. By the time we arrived, the courtroom was standing-room-only, the protesters and police (on horses) were in full swing, and there was only a very short wait before the judge entered the courtoom to being proceedings. I was standing at the side, right up near the front, so I could see everything and hear mostly everything.

The judge here, I guess as in England, is called My Lord, or Your Lordship. And the judge and all the attorneys wear blond raggedy wigs that look ridiculous (to me, anyway). Each attorney for the more than 10 defendants introduced himself in the hushed tones that for some reason Ghanaian men seem to prefer. This makes it very hard to hear them, especially over the phone or over a large group of chanting protesters with drums and other percussion instruments.

Tony spoke first. He was making a motion to dismiss the case, because exactly the same facts are involved in a civil suit that has been ongoing for the last 2 years. He argued two courts trying the same case and potentially reaching contrary results would be unfair and affect the public confidence in the courts (which is probably not too well founded to begin with (see previous post)). In order to make this argument, he had to argue that the court, using the Ghanaian Constitution, had the power to curtail the AG's prosecutorial discretion. This has not been established in Ghana (I think), so he had to rely on cases from the British Commonwealth, of which Ghana is a part. But those cases have only persuasive force in Ghana (they are not binding precedent). This particular Republic of Ghana, the Fourth, is very young, just 12 years old, and the other republics have been broken up by longer military regimes, from which, presumably, there aren't many useful judicial opinions. So it's kind of exciting to be a lawyer here. You get to make lots of new arguments.

It seemed to me that he was essentially reading his brief on the motion to the court. The arguments were clearly new to the judge, and Tony had to spell out the names of the cases that he referred to for support so that the judge and others could write them down. So I'm guessing that one doesn't submit briefs in advance (the parties also do not share evidence with one another). Needless to say, this has a very inefficient feel to it. And it's unfair, too, because the parties don't have the opportunity to construct the best arguments they can because they do not know what arguments their opponents will make.

Anyway. Tony spoke for, I think, two hours, and then the Attorney General of Ghana responded. His position was that the AG has complete discretion over prosecutions and that the court does not have the power to dismiss cases on grounds of capriciousness or arbitrariness. The AG was much briefer, probably only about a half an hour, and then Tony was given 5 minutes (but took about 10) to respond. Then it was over and the circus began. The former President, J.J. Rawlings, and his wife were both present, and they are wildly popular here, so there was a big crush of people around him (he has bodyguards that pushed me out of the way several times (gently)) and the protesters were going nuts, and everybody was yelling. Quite impressive. Then they got in their big car and drove away.

The next installation of this story will have to wait until July 13th, when the judge will make his decision. It seems likely that Tony will lose because in the lower courts the judges, and this judge in particular, are generally unwilling to make big juicy new law. But he can appeal, of course, so the actual trial, even if he loses his appeals, probably won't start for months and months, at least.

Tomorrow night, if all goes as planned (which really means something here), Kristin and I will leave for Kumasi, in central Ghana. I'll be there thru Wednesday for work, some kind of civic education regarding gender. Kumasi is famous for its market, the largest in Western Africa. More on this soon.

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