The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has sued the Electoral Commission (EC) over its decision to charge as much as GH¢50,000 and GH¢10,000 as filing fees for presidential and parliamentary aspirants respectively towards the December 7 elections.
In the suit filed at an Accra High Court yesterday, the party is among other things, seeking a declaration that “the presidential and parliamentary filing fees and or deposits as announced by the 1st defendant [EC] on September 8, 2016 for the conduct of the presidential and parliamentary elections 2016 in the Republic of Ghana is arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”
Joined to the suit is the Attorney General who is the 2nd defendant.
The EC in the 2012 elections charged GH¢10,000 as nomination fee for the presidential slot while that for the parliamentary was GH¢1,000.
The PPP wants an order directed at the EC to as it were, “desist from collecting and or receiving the said deposit or fees for the conduct of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections until the appropriate statutory instruments have been passed in accordance with appropriate legal regime.”
It is also asking the court to declare that “the entire C.I 94 does not contain the appropriate relevant provisions that meet the intendment of Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution” and that “the proper instrument within the meaning of the relevant laws of the Republic of Ghana in charging a deposit and or fees for conducting a presidential and parliamentary elections by the Electoral Commission is a statutory instrument and not Constitutional instrument.”
Even though the party admitted to the fact that charging filing fees for presidential and parliamentary elections in the country is a discretionary power solely vested in the EC by the people’s Representative Law, 1992 (PNDC Law 284) and Presidential Elections Law, 1992 (PNDC Law 285), it [EC] could only exercise that discretionary power upon publishing a statutory instrument with regulations that are not inconsistent with PNDC Laws 284 and 285 and also the provisions of the 1992 Constitution to govern the exercise of the discretionary power vested in her.”
As at today however, the PPP claims that, “There is nothing in the existence here in the Republic of Ghana in the nature of such statutory instrument that governs the exercise of the discretionary power of fees and its deposit with 1st defendant [EC].”
The party therefore, wants the court to prevent the EC from going further with the charging of those “outrageous filing fees.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu