They spend our money, let the Assembly pay my cost: Litigant tells SC

An Assembly member in the Sunyani Municipality, Raphael Cubagee, on June 27, appealed to a 5-member Supreme Court panel to put his cost on the respondent in the suit.

According to him, the Assembly, which he is a part of, is funded with money that belongs to the state and thus wanted the court to rather order them to pay his cost.

This was however turned down by the Supreme Court noting that since the action was a private action and the interested party was not representing the Assembly, no way could happen.

When the case was called, the interested party, told the court that he did not have legal representation because the lawyer he contacted said he would take ‘GHC10,000”.

He was then told by the panel to come to the front and was asked why he had not filed his Statement of Case in the matter.

Mr Cubagee at this point seemed confused until the Chief Justice explained to him the difference between an affidavit and a Statement of Case.

A question was then posed to Mr. Cubagee whether the court should adjourn for him to File his Statement of Case or proceed without the same and explained to him the ramifications for adjourning thus the award of a cost to the respondent.

At this point, the interested party stood, still showing signs of confusion but appeared quite glaring to all in the court that his real issue was the payment of the cost.

He then took the first option thus adjournment but told the court to rather order the Sunyani Municipal Assembly to pay the cost since he was an Assembly member and also the money expended by the Assembly belonged to all.

This argument was overruled by the Supreme Court indicating that he was there in his capacity and thus could not expect the Assembly to pay his cost.

The panel then asked Mr Cubagee to indicate how much money he was ready to pay as cost bearing in mind the distance taken by the Municipal Coordinating Director and others from Sunyani.

Mr. Cubagee thus retorted that “Mr. Lords, we are all coming from Sunyani. I sat on the same bus with the lawyer. He even saw me. We spent only 150 cedis to come here.”

This sent the whole court laughing especially observing how he made the statement.

At this point, a panel of the court, after taking his bite of the laughter, indicated ‘Today, we have met our meter!”

Subsequently, Mr. Cubagee was asked how long he wanted to be given within which to file the Statement of Case. He replied, ‘Mr. Lords, 14 days.”

The Chief Justice, who presided, acceded to his request and thus gave him 14 days within which to file the Statement and ordered him to pay a cost of GHC 2000 to the respondents.