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MP did not show up in court for the hearing
Court sets February 3, 2022, for hearing
MP accused of deceiving a public officer
The Attorney-General’s (A-G) Office has filed criminal charges against Assin North MP, James Gyakye Quayson.
A report by Myjonline said that the charges filed against the member of parliament (MP) includes forgery, perjury, deceiving a public officer, and knowingly making a false declaration.
According to JoyNews, it sighted a copy of the criminal summons filed by the AG’s office against the MP, which indicated that the MP was to show up in court on February 3, 2022.
However, Gyakye Quayson did not show up because the prosecutors were not able to serve him the summons.
The report stated that the court then directed that a hearing notice should be served to James Gyakye Quayson, directing him to appear before the court on February 9, 2022.
Details of the criminal summons are as follows
“The brief facts of this case are that the accused person James Gyakye Quayson is the Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency. The complainant, Richard Takyi-Mensah, is a teacher and a resident of Y. On July 26 2019, the accused person signed an application form for a Republic of Ghana passport. In the application form, he indicated that he is a Ghanaian and does not have dual citizenship.
The accused at the time held Canadian citizenship issued on October 30, 2016, but failed to declare the same on the application form. The passport application of the accused person was vetted on July 29 2019.
Based on this false information and other information provided by the accused person on the passport application form, he was issued with a Ghanaian passport number G2538667 on August 2 2019.
Again, before the 2020 general elections of Ghana was conducted on December 7 2020, nominations were opened between the 5th and the 9th of October 2020. The accused person picked up nomination forms to contest for the position of Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency.
The accused person at the time was a Ghanaian and a Canadian citizen, making him a dual citizenship holder. Therefore, he was disqualified under Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana to be a Member of Parliament.
In part IV of the nomination forms of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, the accused person used a statutory declaration which he had sworn to on October 6 2020, before the District Court Registrar at Assin Fosu, stating that he does not owe allegiance to any country other than Ghana.
The accused person further went ahead to file his nomination forms on October 8 2020, with the false information in the statutory declaration. Based on this false information and other information provided by the accused person in the nomination forms, his nomination was accepted by the Electoral Commission.
He contested for the position and subsequently won the seat. The accused person was issued a Certificate of Renunciation of his Canadian citizenship dated November 26 2020, about forty-eight days after making the false statutory declaration and filing his nomination forms.
On January 14 2021, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department received a petition dated January 11 2021, from the complainant in which the complainant reported these actions of the accused, leading to investigations against him. In his caution statement to the police, the accused person claimed that at the material time, he honestly believed that he did not owe allegiance to any other country. The accused person was subsequently charged with the offences in the charge sheet.
It is based on these facts that the accused person, James Gyakye Quayson, has been arraigned for trial.”
