The High Court’s General Jurisdiction 1 has thrown out Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin’s GH¢15 million defamation suit against Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) Chief Executive Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, after ruling that the writ of summons was incurably defective and incompetent.
The court, in its ruling on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, upheld an objection by Mr Gyamfi’s legal team, which argued that the writ failed to comply with mandatory procedural requirements for defamation actions.
Lawyers for Mr Gyamfi, Seth Anyaaba and Koku Abotsi, said the Minority Leader’s failure to endorse the alleged defamatory statements on the writ of summons rendered the entire action incompetent.
According to Mr Anyaaba, the suit did not satisfy the requirements of Order 57 (2) of the court rules, which requires the alleged defamatory statements to be endorsed on the writ.
“So when Afenyo filed his defamation action, we took the view that the writ, which has just been set aside by the court, did not comply with the rules of court, particularly Order 57 (2), which mandatorily requires that you must endorse the alleged defamatory statements of the defendant on the writ,” he explained.
He said the legal team consequently asked the court to set aside the action, an argument the court accepted.
The court relied on Coleman v Newmont regarding the applicable procedural rule and Owusu Domena on the requirement for objections to be raised promptly.
Mr Anyaaba said the ruling meant the action instituted by Mr Afenyo-Markin on August 24, 2026, was no longer in existence in its current form.
“What it means is that the action which was instituted by Afenyo-Markin on 24th August 2026 against Sammy Gyamfi is no more in existence in the sense that it has been set aside and dismissed by the High Court,” he said.
Mr Abotsi, another member of Mr Gyamfi’s legal team, disclosed that the lawyers had decided not to pursue an award of costs against the plaintiff.
He described the court’s decision to uphold their objection as a victory, while acknowledging that Mr Afenyo-Markin could exercise his right to refile the case.
The ruling, however, concerned the procedural validity of the writ and did not determine whether the statements complained of were defamatory.
Mr Afenyo-Markin announced the GH¢15 million legal action in Parliament on August 24, 2026, following allegations of extortion made against him amid a dispute involving GoldBod and the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.
The Minority Leader denied the allegations, insisting that they were false and intended to damage his reputation.
The suit also named Multimedia Group Limited as a defendant.
The case subsequently generated disagreement over service of the court documents. Mr Gyamfi authorised his lawyers, Ayine & Partners, to accept the documents, while Mr Afenyo-Markin’s lawyers later maintained that service had been completed and rejected suggestions that their client was avoiding the process.
