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The first salvoes were fired in the defamation case that Franklin Cudjoe has brought against Dela Cofie and Michael Dokosi, at the Fast Track Court presided over by Justice Daniel Mensah, on Tuesday.

The court was sitting to hear an application filed by Cofie’s lawyers to strike out Cudjoe’s case for “not disclosing a reasonable cause of action.” Dokosi’s lawyer, David Annan, did not file any such application and has filed a Statement of Defence to the action.

When the case was called, all the counsel were in court. Ace Ankomah announced himself as the lawyer for the Plaintiff, Franklin Cudjoe. Justice Sai appeared for the 1st Defendant (Dela Cofie), and David Annan appeared for the 2nd Defendant (Michael Dokosi).

When Mr. Sai attempted to move his motion, Mr. Ankomah informed the court that was required are the directions of the court on whether it would hear the application on that date, 21st July 2015, since the case was originally slated for 20th July 2015, which turned out to be a public holiday. He also indicated that he had another matter before another court at the same time, and so if the court wanted to hear the matter, Sai could argue for him to respond on another day.

At this point, the judge asked Mr. Ankomah whether he had filed an affidavit in opposition, since there was none on the docket. Mr. Ankomah confirmed that he had filed it, and stated the date of filing. At this point Mr. Annan rose to his feet, saying that although he did not know when Mr. Ankomah was served with Sai’s motion, Mr. Ankomah had been “tardy”. Mr. Ankomah did not take kindly to this and got, pointing out that Annan’s choice of words were unfortunate, and urged the court to call him to order. The judge did his best to cool tempers. The judge pointed out to Annan that his comments were inappropriate since he himself had admitted that he did not know when Sai’s motion was served on Mr. Ankomah. He then stated that he wanted to adjourn the matter.

At this point, and to the surprise of many, Sai who had been about to move his motion, asked for the matter to be adjourned to a date in October. Mr. Ankomah said that he did not mind the date, but stated that the matter could even be heard right there and then. Then Sai, got up again and now stated that he now wanted a short date to argue, which attracted laughter among the lawyers present. The judge did not appear to be amused by this change in stance and corrected Sai, repeatedly referring to him as “young man”.

At the end of the exchanges, the matter was adjourned to 15th October 2015 to hear Cofie’s application to strike out Cudjoe’s case “for not disclosing a reasonable cause of action.”