An American statesman, Benjamin Franklin nicknamed "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for unity and justice lived between January 17, 1706 and April 17, 1790 and is fondly remembered for writing the popular proverb "an empty barrel makes the most noise". It refers to an empty head or stupid person. We all will attest that when you knock on an empty barrel, it sounds loud, and when you knock on a full barrel, it produces silence or quietness. Implicitly, it means people who listen know a lot, and people who talk a lot know less. Indeed the most annoying thing about the sound produced from an empty barrel is that due to its hollowness, when you tap on it, it produces irritating noises unlike the result from tap on a full barrel which makes hardly any noise at all. In practice, we observe that people with no smarts (EMPTY/block head) or not much intelligence/knowledge make the LOUDEST noises, ESPECIALLY when they speak on subjects they know 'nothing' about! They often end up exposing their ignorance. They often do so with the intention to attraction attention thereby gaining recognition which inevitably turns out to be useless and inimical to their own reputation.
On Friday 30 March 2012 a High Court in Accra reviewing the conviction appeal of Prophet Kofi Yirenkyi popularly known as Jesus Onetouch, founder of the Jesus Blood Prophetic Ministry, overturned his conviction. The sitting judge Justice Emmanuel Dzakpasu ruled the prosecution could not prove beyond every reasonable doubt that the girl’s hymen was broken by penis penetration and more importantly if it was the father who defiled her. Jesus Onetouch was slapped with a ten year jail term for defiling his own ten year old daughter by Circuit court presided over by Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa in November 2011. Among other reasons given were that two separate doctors’ reports tendered in evidence could not also vindicate the position by the prosecution while no evidence at all was tendered to support claims that Jesus Onetouch slept with the girl every Tuesday and Thursday and took the vaginal secretions in white handkerchief to perform miracles at church services.
As it has now become the norm in Ghana, the media seeks reactions in order to fill their unprogrammed space and also get legal enlightenment on the implications for the development and enhancement of protection of child rights especially girls. We need to bear in mind that such cases portend great deal of repercussions for future trials of similar nature. It turned out that among the 'so-called learned friends' to speak on the issue was a certain self-styled a human rights lawyer, Nana Oye Lithur. I carefully chose by words in the previous statement. It is not because I don't know or do not understand what a human rights lawyer does or is. I said what I have said because of the persona of Oye Lithur in the past and specifically about the remarks she made with respect to the current case.
What did Nana Oye Lithur say? Basically Oye Lithur is unhappy and that is naturally expected knowing very well that her popularity and bread is derived from making such empty noises. “We are disappointed with the judgement… We are also very disappointed with the way the Attorney General’s office and the Attorney General and the State Attorneys have handled this case because they were not in court today. The case was called, they were not in court and the case was stood down and still they did not appear in court. So we have to look at how the Attorney General’s Department and the State Attorney on this case has handled it and whether or not this has contributed to the judgment we have today,” Oye Lithur is quoted by the media. To be honest, the above comments resonates with the thinking of a large section of Ghanaians who are very dissatisfied with the performance and attitude of the staff of the Attorney General's Department. I believe I do not need to remind anyone about the Woyomegate judgement debt, Waterville judgement debt scandal, CP tax waiver fraud and the list continues unabated. For this reason, I believe we do not need any legal luminary to educate us in order to come to that conclusion.
The most damning and scandalous remarks uttered by Nana Oye Lithur has to do with the appeal evidence. The report said 'Lithur questioned how the two doctors’ reports were tendered in evidence on appeal and questioned who ordered the second test and challenged how it was done. She was convinced that with time the scars on the victim’s private parts and which was basis for the first ruling against Jesus Onetouch may have been healed which made a second test a fait accompli in favour of the accused person.' Did Oye Lithur really understand what an appeal process involves? I have never stepped inside a law lecture room and will claim no better knowledge of the legal process. However, my non-legal experience and knowledge tell me that an appeal process does not accept the tendering in of any new evidence. My illiterate non-legal mind can confirm this.
An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or appeal court is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. The trial court (in this case the Circuit Court), initially hears cases and reviews evidence and testimony to determine the facts of the case to pronounce judgement while appeal court primarily reviews the decisions of the trial court. It does not hear new evidence! This is a first year law class lesson that no accomplished legal practitioner should forget.
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. This means Jesus Onetouch appealed to the Accra High Court to review the conviction of the Circuit Court rendered last November, 2011. This is of right on the assumption that judges though well learned and well verse in the rules of engagement are nonetheless vulnerable to making errors in the delivery of justice. Thus the petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision. The specific procedures for appealing and the nature of an appeal, including even whether there is a right of appeal from a particular type of decision, can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court. Depending on the particular legal rules that apply to each circumstance, a party to a court case who is unhappy with the result might be able to challenge that result in an appellate court on specific grounds. These grounds typically could include errors of law, fact, or procedure.
English jurist William Blackstone said “better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” The ratio 10:1, now known as the “Blackstone ratio,” expresses the classic ideas of the presumption of innocence and (in so far as the statement speaks of “guilt,” “conviction,” “imprisonment,” and the like) the burden of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”
that prevails in criminal law. Contrary to what Nana Oye Lithur would want the world to believe, Jesus Onetouch's appeal did not accept any new evidence. The contradictory evidence given by the two doctors for prosecution took place during the trial at the Circuit court. One doctor said the ten year old girl had had her hymen broken by penile penetration at least once while the doctor from the Police Hospital contradicted claim by saying the broken hymen even if caused by a man, then the small index finger was inserted. Frankly speaking, I was really surprised that in spite of this obvious doubt, Justice Mensah-Datsa still thought the accused was guilty of the charges preferred against him. The conviction justly could not pass strict proof test.
that prevails in criminal law. Contrary to what Nana Oye Lithur would want the world to believe, Jesus Onetouch's appeal did not accept any new evidence. The contradictory evidence given by the two doctors for prosecution took place during the trial at the Circuit court. One doctor said the ten year old girl had had her hymen broken by penile penetration at least once while the doctor from the Police Hospital contradicted claim by saying the broken hymen even if caused by a man, then the small index finger was inserted. Frankly speaking, I was really surprised that in spite of this obvious doubt, Justice Mensah-Datsa still thought the accused was guilty of the charges preferred against him. The conviction justly could not pass strict proof test.
Readers would recall that this same Nana Oye Lithur vigorously campaigned for the arrest of the President of The Gambia, Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh. Nana Oye Lithur linked Jammeh with the reported 2004 massacre of 44 Ghanaian migrants and 10 other ECOWAS nationals. Though, the NPP government at the time denied the number of 44, Oye Lithur insisted without producing any identifications of the people allegedly murdered or any proof of her claims. Eventually, when the NDC, a party she is known to have sympathy towards and in which she and her husband have been given high profile and very lucrative appointments came to power from 2009, compensation was paid for mere four (4) Ghanaians by The Gambian government. Sadly, in what has become known as NDC BLOOD MONEY, Oye Lithur looked on unconcerned as officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immorally siphoned large portion of the compensation money and paying peanuts to relatives of the victims and failing to render proper and convincing accounts.
For being who she is, perhaps the only advice for her is please silence is GOLDEN, speech is silver. You, Betty Mould-Iddrissu are adding to the widely held perception that women lawyers in Ghana are empty barrels, incompetent, ill-informed though women lawyers like Professor Akua Kuenyehia and others give us reason to trust their competence, knowledge and expertise in the professional practice of lawyer by our women lawyer folks. Meanwhile Nana Oye Lithur please shut up and give us a break! As we approach the Passion, perhaps you need someone to remind you that “bias against punishment” has its roots in “the most famous of all miscarriages of justice: Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.” Maybe the coincidence of name, Jesus helped his vindication to give true meaning to the maxim that “better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” You must recognise that Jesus Onetouch too is equally a human being like the ten year old girl and if you believe in true dispensation of justice as of right and not based on effusions, then the state has no business violating the rights of Jesus Onetouch simply to satisfy the parochial interests of so-called gender and child rights activists like Oye Lithur. It is just and proper that the wrongful imprisonment he endured during the five months of incarceration must be now corrected by the Accra High that heard his conviction appeal case at least so long as doubt exists about his culpability in the case.
I repeat that I neither personally know Prophet Kofi Yirenkyi also known as Jesus Onetouch in any connection nor ever worshiped at Jesus Blood Prophetic Ministry, the church he is claimed to have founded. I am simply writing this piece in the belief that Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa indeed erred during the trial at the circuit court and that legal redress must be available for any party that has suffered some injury irrespective of our personal beliefs or convictions. To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay right or justice. Let us all be "bold to defend forever the cause of freedom and of right, fill our hearts with true humility and make us cherish fearless honesty."
I repeat that I neither personally know Prophet Kofi Yirenkyi also known as Jesus Onetouch in any connection nor ever worshiped at Jesus Blood Prophetic Ministry, the church he is claimed to have founded. I am simply writing this piece in the belief that Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa indeed erred during the trial at the circuit court and that legal redress must be available for any party that has suffered some injury irrespective of our personal beliefs or convictions. To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay right or justice. Let us all be "bold to defend forever the cause of freedom and of right, fill our hearts with true humility and make us cherish fearless honesty."
