Voter roll: Supreme Court adjourns judgement on NDC v. EC case indefinitely

Ghana’s Supreme Court has adjourned indefinitely the case between the National Democratic Congress and the Electoral Commission concerning the election management body’s forthcoming exercise to register voters.

The apex court was expected to deliver judgment on the matter on Tuesday, 23 Jun3 2020 but had to adjourn it indefinitely on Friday, 19 June 2020 after hearing a similar suit against the EC filed by private citizen Mark Takyi-Benson.

The seven-member panel of justices, thus, granted a request by the Attorney General to consolidate both cases.

The court asked Mr Takyi-Banson and his team of lawyers to file their statement of case by mid-day of Monday, 22 June 2020 while the AG is to file its statement of case by Tuesday, 23 June 2020.

The parties will then be in court on Wednesday, 24 June 2020 for a hearing.

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Mr Takyi-Banson sued the EC excluding the current voter ID card from the upcoming registration exercise.

Parliament recently passed the Public Election (Amendment) Regulation, 2020 (C.I. 126) to amend CI91 making the passport and Ghana card as the only breeder documents that can be used to register as a voter.

Mr Takyi-Banson is praying the court to grant an order directing that C.I.126 violates the provisions of article 42 and 45 of the 1992 Constitution to the extent that it excludes Birth Certificates issued to Ghanaians as a mode of identification and establishing qualification to be registered in the register of voters.

The plaintiff is also seeking a similar relief for the voter ID card as well as a declaration that the Electoral Commission’s decision to compile a new register of voters is “inconsistent with and a violation of article 45(a) of the 1992 constitution of the Republic of Ghana.”

Already, the biggest opposition party, the NDC, has been challenging the EC’s exclusion of the voter card from the registration process in the same court.

On Thursday, 12 June 2020, the Director of Legal Affairs of the party, Mr Abraham Amaliba, said the NDC was compelled by the Supreme Court to let go its first relief in its two-pronged suit against the EC.

“If your correspondent was in court, he would have told you that the NDC did not voluntarily abandon the first relief”, Mr Amaliba told Class91.3FM’s Blessed Sogah on the 505 news programme, adding: “Indeed, we argued that it was possible for the Supreme Court to deal with both reliefs because one bordered on the Constitution, the other was on the CI that would allow the EC to use passports and NIA cards. So, we were of the view that it was possible for the Supreme Court to deal with the two issues.

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“However, they declined and asked us to elect which of them we wanted to pursue and, so, in our wisdom, we decided for the second relief, which relief had some element of dealing with the register in such a way to have the same effect as if the register has not been compiled. And, so, if you look at the wisdom in our selection, it will tell you that if we got the second relief granted by the Supreme Court, then it will eventually mean that the register has not been compiled anew, and, so that’s what happened but it’s not as if we went to court voluntarily to have our first relief struck out”, Mr Amaliba explained.

The NDC, with regard to the first relief, sought to stop the EC from conduction a registration exercise for a new voter roll ahead of the 2020 polls in addition to its attempt to compel the election management body to use the old voter ID card for compiling a new register of voters.

At the Supreme Court hearing on 12 June 2020, the lawyer for the NDC, Mr Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, abandoned the first relief after the panel asked him to choose one of the two.

The Supreme Court had set 23 June 2020 as the date to deliver judgement on the NDC v. EC case.

Source: CLASS FM