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The nine-member panel of Justices hearing the 2012 election petition has said it has so far been fair and just with its rulings concerning the case. At the hearing on Wednesday May 8, 2013, Lead Counsel for the Petitioners Mr. Philip Addison wondered why the lead Counsel for the third Respondent Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata kept imputing dishonesty against the key witness Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia during cross examination and therefore sought a pronouncement from the Bench to restrain Mr. Tsikata. Mr. Addison also threatened in open Court that his side could answer in kind if Mr. Tsikata were not reined in. �We are very much capable of throwing those same words at him�, he warned. Painting a scenario of Mr. Tsikata being a kettle calling the pot black, Mr. Addison protested that: �It�s quite surprising coming from him talking about honesty, really, these kind of words that he�s been using, playing to the gallery, we have said that we do not want to reply in kind; he should choose his words carefully; there was no need at all to address the Witness as dishonest; coming from him, it�s quite rich�. He said: �My Lords I don�t know why Counsel can�t ask questions without using words like honesty and so on�. The President of the Bench defended the panel�s decisions so far, as far as the use of foul language on both sides was concerned. Justice William Atuguba said: �let me refresh your memories, the penultimate issue arriving on this matter was when he [Tsikata] told you [Addison] to shut up; you objected and I said ok, I�m wiping the slate clean [and I warned that] from that stage all concerns should be addressed to the Bench. Thereafter you [Addison] put an objection to a question he [Tsikata] put in cross examination and you said �well if my learned friend is running out of questions he should better sit down. We didn�t comment and he also used some other expression to reply to the effect that [the witness shouldn�t ridicule himself] and�I told him that he couldn�t say that because the witness was free to ridicule himself�so this is where we reached and so the mudslinging was evened [up]�. �Now there should be no generation of it whether manually or electronically�, Justice Atuguba warned jovially. Mr. Tsikata continues his cross examination of Dr. Bawumia for the seventh day today, Thursday May 9, 2013. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo (First Respondent), together with Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the Party�s National Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey is in court challenging the validity of the election results as declared by the country�s electoral commission after the December 7 and 8 general elections. The Respondents are President John Mahama, the Electoral Commission and the NDC. The petitioners argue that the elections were fraught with unpardonable flaws which must not be left uninvestigated. They accuse the NDC of conspiring with the EC to deny Nana Akufo Addo victory in the polls. They therefore, are praying the Court to set aside and nullify the EC�s results which declared President Mahama as winner of the presidential poll. They want the court to annul 4,670,504 of the valid votes cast during the election at 11,138 polling stations where they claim a lot of anomalies occurred. The Court whittled the case down to two issues. They included whether or not there were statutory violations, irregularities, omissions and malpractices in the 2012 general elections and if same impacted the final results.