The state has preferred fresh charges of alleged forgery, deceit of public officer and perjury against the Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North Constituency, Mr James Gyakye Quayson.
He is also accused of knowingly making a false statutory declaration and false declaration.
The charges are related to Mr Quayson’s alleged failure to renounce his Canadian citizenship when he filed his nomination forms to contest the 2020 parliamentary election.
The charges are in a document signed by Mrs Yvonne Atakora Obiobisa, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
On July 28, 2021, a Cape Coast High Court declared the parliamentary election held in the Assin North Constituency on December 7, 2020, a nullity and ordered the Electoral Commission (EC), who is a defendant in the case, to conduct fresh election.
Not pleased with the High Court judgment, Mr Quayson appealed at the Court of Appeal, Cape Coast, but even before the court made pronouncement on the matter, the applicant, Mr Richard Takyi-Mensah, a teacher, and resident of Yamoransa, in the Central Region, filed a motion at the Supreme Court (SC), and asked a seven-member panel presided over by Justice Jones Dotse to order the Mr Quayson to stop holding himself as MP.
On Tuesday when the case was called before the SC, the judges directed the Registrar of the Court to service Mr Quayson directly as an individual.
According to prosecution, accused on July 26, 2019, signed an application form for a Republic of Ghana passport.
In the application form, Mrs Obiobisa said that Mr Quayson indicated that he was a Ghanaian and did not have dual citizenship.
She said Mr Quayson, at the time, held a Canadian citizenship, issued on October 30, 2016, but failed to declare same on the application form.
It the case of the prosecution that passport application of the accused person was vetted on July 29, 2019.
The DPP said based on alleged false information together with the other information provided by the accused on the passport application form, he was issued with a Ghanaian passport, number G2538667 on August 2, 2019.
Again, prosecution said before the 2020 General Elections of Ghana was conducted on December 7, 2020, nominations were opened between October 5 and 9, 2020 and the accuser picked up nomination forms to the contest the election.
“The accused at the time was a Ghanaian and a Canadian citizen, making him a dual citizenship holder.
He was therefore, disqualified under Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana to be a Member of Parliament.”
The DPP said in part IV of the nomination forms of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Mr Quayson 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 together with other information provided by the accused person in the nomination forms, his nomination was accepted by the Electoral Commission.”
Mrs Obiobisa said Mr Quayson contested for the position and subsequently won the seat.
She said the accused was issued a Certificate of Renunciation of his Canadian citizenship on November 26, 2020, about forty-eight days after he had made the false statutory declaration and filed his nomination forms.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
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