James Gyakye Quayson, the Member of Parliament for Assin North, has been acquitted and discharged by the High Court after facing criminal charges linked to allegations of dual citizenship
Delivered on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, the decision puts an end to a protracted legal dispute over allegations that Quayson was a citizen of Canada at the time he filed to run in the 2020 parliamentary elections, an act that the prosecution claimed was against the Ghanaian Constitution.
Before submitting his nomination, Gyakye Quayson had insisted that he had abandoned his Canadian citizenship, a claim he had repeatedly refuted. Speaking following the decision, he conveyed his relief at the court’s choice.
After Quayson’s legal team submitted a no case to answer, he was acquitted. The court concluded that the prosecution had not established the necessary components of the claimed offences.
Quayson did not make any misleading statements on his 2020 nomination documents, the judge decided.
The court determined that he had already applied to renounce his Canadian citizenship at the time he stated that he owed allegiance to Ghana alone, proving that he had no malice in his heart.
The reliability of the evidence presented was further undermined by the court’s identification of discrepancies in the prosecution witnesses’ statutory declarations and passport summary sheet.
The judge came to the conclusion that there was no justification for calling Quayson to present his case.
Quayson was charged with five offences: perjury, false declaration for office, wilfully making a false statutory declaration, and forgery of a passport or travel certificate.
The prosecution claimed that by claiming that he had no allegiance to another nation, he had misled the Electoral Commission and the Passport Office.
The High Court’s decision has cleared the legal haze surrounding Quayson’s parliamentary seat, enabling him to carry on serving as a lawmaker without any more legal challenges.
