Sophia Akuffo, the Chief Justice nominee has debunked claims that the Montie 3 were not treated fairly by the panel of judges which sentenced them to four months in prison.

Appearing before the vetting committee on Friday, 16 June, 2017, Justice Akuffo said “Normally, when natural justice has been denied, then there is denial of justice, but there was no denial of natural justice.”

The Montie three, Alistair Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn and Salifu Maase alias ‘Mugabe’ were sentenced to four months in prison by the Supreme Court following contempt proceedings against them.

The contempt proceedings came after the three threatened the Supreme Court judges who sat on the Abu Ramadan and Gary Nimako versus the Electoral Commission case.

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Sampson Ahi, the Member of Parliament for Bodi during the vetting on Friday said: “Our judges became the prosecutors and became judges in the same matter and at the end of the day handed down convictions to them [Montie 3]…”He, therefore, asked for “codified rules as to who can do what when it comes to contempt so that the rule of natural justice is not breached”.

Justice Akuffo in her response said the judiciary relies on the office of the Attorney General to prosecute in that type of contempt, adding that “you will recall in the case you mentioned that that did not happen weeks after the contempt had been committed, so it was an exceptional circumstance but fully backed by the law that governs contempt”.She further explained that in “natural justice, invariably, that person is given the opportunity to purge their contempt but in the case of the Montie 3 we did not give them that opportunity but they did get the opportunity to put up a case if they wanted to.”

“They were represented by a whole bevvy of high-powered lawyers and they in the end decided to plead guilty. When a person pleads guilty, you proceed to sentence. So it is [a] normal process and [they] were not denied justice at all...” she said.