COMMISSIONER OF POLICE vs. OSEI YAW AKOTO

In this application for leave to appeal against the dismissal of the charge and the acquittal of the accused by the District Magistrate, Accra, following a submission by counsel for the accused of no case to answer, the learned state attorney filed the following grounds of appeal: “1. The ruling of the learned trial magistrate was unreasonable and cannot be supported by the evidence. 2. The learned trial magistrate wrongly refused to allow the prosecuting state attorney to reply to the legal submission of ‘no case to answer’, made by the defence counsel.” Counsel abandoned the first ground of appeal and argued only the second. He seriously contended that counsel for the accused had no right to make the submission of no case to answer and that the learned district magistrate erred in law by allowing the submission to be made and refusing to allow the prosecuting counsel to reply to the submission. In his view the proper interpretation of section 173 of the Criminal ...