THE Supreme Court has dismissed an application by Finance Minister James Marape to disqualify two judges from presiding over his case.
Justice Don Sawong gave the ruling yesterday on behalf of Justices Collin Makail and Derek Hartshorn and himself. Marape, through his lawyer Robert Leo, moved a motion on Oct 9 to have Makail and Sawong disqualified from his case on the grounds of apprehension of bias. Marape filed the application after Makail and Sawong gave a verdict on Sept 29, refusing Marape’s application to have police officers Mathew Damaru and Timothy Gitua removed as respondents in his substantive appeal. The court said that the evidence supporting the application came from Marape himself. “We have considered the contents of the affidavit and we find that it contains opinions, not facts,” the court said. “Quite clearly, the appellant’s (Marape’s) assertions are based on the lawyer’s advice and opinion. A lawyer’s advice or opinion about a judgment is not a fact. “There must be evidence of facts, matters or circumstances which show that we might decide the substantive appeal other than on its merit and logically connect them to the apprehended deviation from the court of our decision on the substantive appeal on its merit. “To this end, the evidence falls short of establishing this. We are not satisfied that it can be correctly alleged or that we did in fact, prejudge that substantive appeal. “In the argument before us concerning the issues in the substantive appeal were not before us as we were dealing with the application to remove the sixth and seventh respondents (Damaru and Gitua),” the court said. “We, therefore, did not consider the merits of the substantive appeal. We were only considering the application to remove the sixth and seventh respondents.
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