An Accra High Court fined investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni and three others GHC 2,400 apiece for contempt of court.
Manasseh and the three defaulters will spend one month in jail for publishing issues yet to be decided by the Court.
The court presided over by Mrs. Justice Harriet Akweley Quaye ordered the defendants in the case (The Republic against Manasseh Azure and three others, Ex-Parte Lighthouse Chapel International) to apologize unreservedly to the Lighthouse Chapel International and its leader, Dag Heward Mills.
The court ordered responders to apologize in the “identical places” as the articles.
In January 2022, Lighthouse Chapel International (LCI) sued Manasseh and three others for contempt.
Manasseh, Edwin Appiah an Editor, Sulemana Briamah of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), and the MFWA as an organization (respondents) published “extremely prejudiced” pieces against the Church, according to the contempt case.
They also issued “commentaries” and “conclusive remarks” on unsettled questions that the High Court had yet to decide.
Thus, the application requested that the respondents be imprisoned for contempt of court for the publications.
Six former pastors of the Church filed three lawsuits alleging that the Church had not paid their Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions
Larry Odonkor, Emmanuel Oko-Mensah, Edward Laryea, Seth Duncan, Edem Kofi Amankwah, and Faith Fiakojo.
In its affidavit, the Church cautioned the respondents that the first three publications were defamatory and “possibly in contempt of Court”.
After being filed with defamation cases, “the respondents threw all cautions to the wind” and made “first, second, and third publications on their Facebook pages on December 25, 2021,” it claimed.
The petitioner said the respondents “demonstrated to the High Court that there can be no limit to the manner they performed their style of journalism” by replicating the articles.
“Regenerated a new intense public debate and discourse on six claims now before the Honorable court,” the Church said.
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The Church said that the three pieces in the contempt application, “Darkness in a Lighthouse,” were published on April 23, 27, and 29 last year.
“Lighthouse pleads for more time to submit defense” appeared on May 25, 2021.
On August 25 and 26, 2021, two articles were published: “Lighthouse Pastors were not employees-SSNIT rules” and “Evidence: How Lighthouse incriminated itself, yet SSNIT looked away”.
The Church observed that “Darkness in the Lighthouse” was published 37 times between April 23 and May 1, 2021, on respondents’ Facebook walls and Twitter accounts, generating 1,000 comments and shares on Facebook and other social media handles.
The petitioner called the respondents’ frequent and defiant republications “serial contempt in the utmost.”
Because they were “unrepentant and without any remorse whatsoever,” the respondents might be found guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to prison. Media trials will discredit justice.