The High Court, Kumasi, Presided by the brilliant Justice Dr. Poku Adusei in the case of THE REPUBLIC v. NANA ASANTE AMPONG & EX-PARTE; ABENKYIM STOOL & ORS [TLP-HC-2025-12] has rejected an application for the stay and/or suspension of a sentence for contempt of Court of one Nana Asante Ampong in the course of a civil matter on grounds of incompetence of the said Application.

The learned Court of Appeal Judge sitting as an additional High Court Judge convicted the said Appellant, Nana Asante Ampong after the Appellant flouted prohibitory orders delivered in a ruling of the court dated the 11th day of December, 2024. In its 3-page ruling condensed with admirable legal exposition, the High Court in rejecting the suspension and/or stay of its 2-week prison confinement orders against the Appellant offered clarity on the legal process to take to suspend a prison sentence of a contemnor.

Contempt is Quasi-criminal not Quasi-civil

With clarity in voice and application of legal principles of contempt in civil proceedings, stay of proceedings and criminal sentence reversal, Justice Dr. Poku Adusei reasoned that contempt is a quasi-criminal matter and not quasi-civil, thus, civil procedure processes of stay of proceedings ostensibly to reverse a conviction, halt the running of a sentence of a contemnor and/or suspend a sentence upon the filing of an appeal are inapplicable to a Court's order committing a person to prison for contempt.

In reliance on his dependable work published in the 2017 edition of the Global Journal of International and Comparative Law (GJICL), His Lordship, Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as an additional High Court Judge held that a process as brought by the Appellant through his lawyer, Mr. Hansen Kwadwo Koduah is alien to Ghana's Legal System despite its applicability in other jurisdictions as may be reported in the news which His Lordship suspected to be the basis for Counsel's move which found no favour with His Lordship.

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