Deposed Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei, has been slapped with GH¢8,000 fine following her withdrawal of defamation suit against an Accra-based lawyer, Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang.
The former EC boss, in the suit filed on July 25, 2017, prayed the court to direct Mr. Opoku-Agyemang to retract comments deemed defamatory which were made in relation to the petition sent to the presidency to remove her from office and apologise for same.
Mr. Opoku-Agyemang, on behalf of some concerned staff of the EC, sent a petition to the President and called for impeachment proceedings to be initiated against Charlotte Osei for misconduct and conflict of interest.
But a notice of discontinuance of the defamatory suit against Mr. Opoku-Agyemang, which was filed by her lawyer, was granted by the court, presided by Justice Ackaah Boafo.
The court also awarded cost of GH¢8,000 against her.
The deposed EC chairperson in the suit argued that “the false and malicious publications by defendant has injured the image of plaintiff and brought her hard won reputation into hatred, ridicule, odium, discredit, contempt, opprobrium and reproach.
She is therefore seeking, among others, a declaration that “the statements that plaintiff is managerially and administratively inept because plaintiff has no respect for the organizational structure of the Electoral Commission, has poor human relations not befitting of any leader in public space, has unilaterally transferred district electoral officers perceived to be pro NPP,” “polarized the Commission along political lines and disunited its members at paragraphs 11, 12, 13, 20, 21 and 26 of the petition attached to defendant’s letter conveying the petition to His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana are defamatory of plaintiff.”
Charlotte Osei, based on the petition and a probe by a committee set up by the Chief Justice, was removed as chairperson of the EC for misbehaviour and incompetence on June 28, 2018.
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