Magistrate sitting at District Court eight (8) and responsible for the adjudication of the committal proceedings of the beleaguered Chief Executive Officer of the Obengfo Hospital, her lordship , Efua Sackey today ordered the seizure of Mobile Phones belonging to Journalists who attended her court to carry out their lawful duties of reporting on the case.
The Magistrate before hearing the case of the Republic versus Dominic Obeng Andoh (Obengfo Case), ordered her Court Warrant Officer (CWO) to confiscate the phones of all journalists in her court before she will hear the case.
At the last court sitting before today’s hearing, the Magistrate ordered journalists to report to the registrar of her court to seek clearance before accessing her court.
She instructed that, her action is to prevent the Journalists from recording proceedings. Since the commencement of the Obengfo case, Magistrate Sackey has consistently had issues with and openly expressed her dislike for the presence of journalists in her court.
At the last court sitting before today’s hearing, the Magistrate ordered journalists to report to the registrar of her court to seek clearance before accessing her court.
Court correspondents for the Publisher Newspaper, Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson, Accra FM’s, Ama Brako Ampofo, Ghanaian Times, Malik Suleiman, and EIB Network, Wilberforce Aware had their phones detained by the CWO for nearly an hour.
After the court sitting, the Journalists who where affected by the decision of Magistrate Sackey expressed their disgust about the orders of the court indicating that her decision and subsequent orders are completely alien to their experiences in courts particularly, the higher courts of Judicature such as the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
Source:Â ghanacrusader.com
