Charlotte Osei
An Accra High Court (Human Rights Division) has ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to activate the process that will lead to Ghanaians living abroad to vote in the country’s elections.
The court says within 12 calendar months – beginning from January 1, 2018 – the EC should lay before parliament the modalities for the implementation of the Representation of the People (Amendment) – ROPAA – Act 699 so that Ghanaian citizens living abroad can take part in election 2020.
The court, presided over by Justice Anthony K. Yeboah, also ordered the EC to come and explain to the court reasons for its inability to roll out the implementation of the Act – within one month after the expiration of the 12-month period. It should, as well, publish the reasons in the media.
The orders of the court followed a suit filed by five Ghanaians living in New York, the United States of America, who were fighting the inability of the EC to implement the Act which was assented to by former President John Agyekum Kufuor in 2006.
The applicants, through their lawyer, Samson Lardy Anyenini, argued that the absence of a law that allows Ghanaians in other countries to vote is a breach of their fundamental human rights.
The applicants described as discriminatory the decision of the EC to continue to register citizens studying abroad or working in Ghana’s missions/embassies abroad to vote in public elections and referenda.
They thus prayed the court for an order of mandamus directed at the respondents, particularly the EC, to forthwith, uphold and ensure full compliance and operationalisation of the Act 699.
The EC however, argued that it plans to implement the law cautiously and progressively and should not be compelled to do so.
It also challenged the process by which the applicants invoked the court’s jurisdiction as wrong, while insisting that voting is not a human right.
In his judgment, Justice Yeboah held that it is not reasonable for a category of citizens studying abroad or working in Ghana’s missions/embassies to be allowed to register and vote in elections while others who are qualified to vote are denied their right.
According to him, the EC woefully failed to justify the decade delay in rolling out the modalities for the implementation of the Act and that the excuse that it plans to implement it cautiously and progressively is “self-serving and self-indulging.”
It was the opinion of the court that the EC had also failed to provide any comfort to the applicants as to how soon the modalities for the implementation of the Act would be rolled out.
Justice Yeboah also ruled that the commission, which prides itself of an absolute independence in its handling of the Act, had been poorer for not being able to find a solution to this simple issue.
He therefore ordered the commission to roll out the modalities within 12 calendar months to enable the applicants register and vote in 2020.
ROPAA
The Kufuor administration initiated the passage of the ROPAA in February 2006 to allow Ghanaian citizens living abroad to be registered and vote from there.
The Act was expected to remove the discriminatory practice of denying Ghanaian citizens living abroad the right to vote in general election from their places of residence.
Since the enactment of the Act in 2006, the EC had failed to lay down the modalities for its implementation.
The EC in 2011 set up a committee which produced some modalities but had since gone to sleep on the project.
Successive governments have promised their commitment to ensure implementation of the law but nothing concrete has been done yet.
According to the International Electoral Knowledge Network, there are 115 countries in the world – 28 in Africa – that have enabling laws for overseas voting, with Ghana singled out as a case of a country that has passed such a law but has not implemented it.
It contend that this is not new as Senegal, South Africa, Namibia, Niger, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and South Sudan either allow their citizens abroad to vote in presidential elections or are piloting the system.
Application
The applicants are Kofi A. Boateng, Nellie Kemevor, Obed Danquah, Christiana Sillim and Agyenim Boateng – who are all members of the Progressive Alliance Movement (PAM), a New York State incorporated non-profit organization.
The case was originally filed in 2016 but was later withdrawn ahead of the general election and re-filed after the December polls.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak