The Accra High Court has granted Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson a ¢100,000 bail with one surety.
He was grnted bail after he pleaded not guilty to all five charges including perjury and deceit of Public officer.
The Lawmaker is facing five counts of forgery of passport or travel certificate, knowingly making a false statutory declaration, perjury and false declaration for office.
The Court also ordered Gyakye Quayson to deposit his passport with the registrar of the court.
The Court, presided over by Justice Mary Maame Ekue Nsenkyire, admitted the MP to bail after he had pleaded not guilty to all five charges against him.
The accused appeared in Court in the company of the minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, Okoe Vanderpuye, Samuel Okuzeto Ablakwa, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the National Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, Sammy Gyamfi, Betty Mould iddrisu, Lawyer Abraham Amaliba and former Attorney Generals, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong and others.
The case has been adjourned to March 15, 2022.
Background
The Cape Coast high court restrained James Gyakye Quayson from holding himself as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Assin North.
On Wednesday 28 July 2021, Justice Kwasi Boakye also ordered for fresh parliamentary elections to be held in the constituency. This followed a parliamentary election petition brought to the Cape Coast high court by Michael Ankomah-Nimfah, seeking to annul the MP’s election.
Quayson polled 17,498 votes against 14,793 by the New Patriotic Party’s Abena Durowaa Mensah in the December 7, 2020 parliamentary election.
On 30 December 2020, a resident of Assin North, Michael Ankomah-Nimfah, filed a parliamentary election petition at the Cape Coast high court challenging Quayson’s eligibility to be an MP.
He argued that the MP was not eligible because at the time he (Quayson) filed his nomination to stand as a parliamentary candidate, he was still a citizen of Canada. Such an act, he argued, was against the express provision of Article 94 (2)(a) of the 1992 constitution and Section 9(2) of the Representation of the People Act 1992 (PNDCL 284).
Quayson has since been fighting under the law to set this aside, with the matter currently pending at the Court of Appeal.
Michael Ankomah Nimfah, the resident of the constituency who initiated the action against the MP at the high court, has sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to stop Quayson from performing parliamentary duties. That matter remains pending, as court officials have been unable to serve the MP with the court processes.
