An Accra High Court has dismissed the case filed by Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) against The Fourth Estate, a news portal, regarding what SML claimed were “defamatory and reckless” reports about its contracts with the Ghana Revenue Authority.
Presided over by Justice John Eugene Nyante Nyadu, the court not only threw out the case but also awarded a cost of GHS1,000 against SML.
This decision was based on SML’s failure to conduct due diligence on the legal status of The Fourth Estate before initiating legal action and citing the investigative journalism project as a First Defendant in the case.
The legal action by SML against The Fourth Estate and its former Editor-In-Chief, Manasseh Azure Awuni, was initiated in February 2024 following the publication of an investigative report.
The report exposed how SML, an offshoot of a timber company, had allegedly made false claims about potential revenue losses it had helped the state to avoid.
It also raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the signing of the contract and its rationale, as the services SML was contracted to provide were allegedly already being performed by other state agencies.
In response to the case, lawyers for the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), led by Samson Lardy Anyenini, filed a motion on March 12, 2024, asking the court to dismiss the SML case against The Fourth Estate as First Defendant. They argued that The Fourth Estate is simply an investigative journalism project of the MFWA and not a legal entity.
“That the applicant [The Fourth Estate] is neither a natural nor artificial legal person [company] capable of suing and being sued, being a project under the MFWA’s Media and Good Governance Programme,” lawyers for the MFWA argued.
The Fourth Estate is a non-profit, public interest journalism project of the MFWA and not a company.
However, lawyers representing SML contested this. On March 26, 2024, during a court appearance by MFWA’s lawyers to challenge the application, SML’s legal team claimed they had conducted a search at the Office of Registrar of Companies to prove that The Fourth Estate was a legal entity capable of being sued.
As a result, SML requested more time to produce the search results and file an affidavit in opposition, which would outline reasons why The Fourth Estate’s motion should not be granted.
Despite filing the affidavit, SML failed to serve the defendants with the document. Eventually, SML withdrew their affidavit in opposition on Tuesday.
MFWA’s lawyers argued their motion, and the court upheld it, setting aside the suit and ruling that SML could not sue The Fourth Estate.
Furthermore, the court granted SML’s application to include MFWA in the lawsuit instead of The Fourth Estate.