The three Appeal Court judges who heard the appeal by former CEO of MASLOC, Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu wrote in their judgement that the prosecution failed to proof the charges against her beyond reasonable doubt.
They further noted that the charges against her were defective.
The judges are; Emmanuel Ankamah J.A (Presiding), Samuel Obeng-Diawuo J.A. and Emmanuel Senyo Amedahe J.A.
Here is the conclusion of the 94-page judgement:
“It has long been the golden thread running through our criminal jurisprudence that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the accused, and that this burden never shifts unless the enabling statute or law has expressly and clearly said otherwise.
That principle, articulated by Viscount Sankey in Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462 and unshaken since, is not a technical nicety of procedure. It is the constitutional expression of the presumption of innocence, and it is owed to every accused.
The learned trial judge lost sight of this. Confronted with a charge sheet drawn mostly in negative terms that the Appellant had acted ‘without authorisation,’ or ‘without due process,’ she reasoned that because the Prosecution had averred a negative, it fell to the Appellant to prove the positive: that authorisation, process, or justification in fact existed.
With respect, that reasoning inverts the very principle it purports to apply. The manner in which a Prosecutor chooses to draft a particular offence cannot, of itself, relocate the burden of proving an ingredient of the crime.
A negative averment, artfully or carelessly pleaded, is not an exception, a proviso, or a statutory defence; it remains, in substance, an element the Prosecution must establish and the difficulty of proving a negative is the Prosecution’s difficulty to bear, not the Accused to solve.
I would go further to emphasize the principle that unless a statute plainly places the burden of proving a particular element of an offence upon the Accused, she is under no obligation whatsoever to lead evidence in aid of a Prosecution case that has not yet reached the threshold the law demands of it.
To require otherwise is to ask the Accused to complete the Prosecution’s unfinished work and to convict her for declining the invitation as was done by the learned trial judge.
The Prosecution’s evidence, on a fair and unaided reading, fell short of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The shortfall was not made good by any burden properly resting on the Appellant and the trial judge’s misdirection on this fundamental point goes to the very root of a fair trial.
For these reasons, therefore, I am satisfied that the conviction and sentencing on all the charges including those manifestly defective charges cannot stand. I would allow the appeal and set aside the Appellant’s conviction and sentencing on all counts.”
