Jean Mensa
The Electoral Commission (EC) has filed a supplementary statement of case as ordered by the Supreme Court justifying why it intends to exclude the old voter ID cards as one of the primary documents for proof of citizenship for the new Voters Register.
The EC in its 31-page argument questioned the constitutionality and legality of the current voters register and the old ID cards.
The EC in its response cited cases in which the Supreme Court itself found that the current Voters Register is not credible as a result of the fact that many of the applicants used the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) membership cards to register on to the electoral roll.
“The existing voter register which was compiled in 2012 pursuant to CI 72 and revised since by limited registration exercises has been held by this Honourable Court as not being reasonably credible. By implication, the cards issued pursuant to it are also not reasonably credible”, the EC pointed out.
It further argued that “In respect of the cards issued pursuant to CI 12, the 2nd Defendant (EC) has found that those voter identification cards were issued without any form of identification at all and its ineligibilities, breaches and excesses were imported into the 2012 register pursuant to CI 72 in breach of Article 42 and displacing the credibility of the CI 12 cards”.
Order
The Supreme Court last Thursday ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to justify why the existing voter ID cards cannot be used as basis for registration on to the new roll the commission is getting ready to compile.
A seven-member panel of the court, presided over by Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, said the EC had up to today, Monday, June 8, 2020 to file a supplementary statement of case, providing legal basis why the old voter ID cards should be excluded from the legal documents for proof.
This was as a result of the NDC, in late March 2020, sueing the AG and attached the EC over the commission’s decision to compile a new voters’ register for the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.
The party wants the Supreme Court to declare that the EC, per the 1992 Constitution, can only compile a voters’ register once and subsequently review it over time and not compile a new one instead.
The NDC contends that the EC “can only revise the existing register of voters, and lacks the power to prepare a fresh register of voters for the conduct of the December 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak.