Plaintiffs in a suit seeking a credible voter’s register ahead of general elections this year say they will ensure that a ruling requesting the Electoral Commission (EC) to delete the names of National Health Insurance (NHIS) carders is carried out to the letter.
A member of the legal team for the plaintiffs, Frank Davies, says ensuring that the EC adheres to the orders of the Court is key to a credible electoral roll.
“We are going to police and protect this verdict so that Ghanaians will have a reasonably accurate and credible register for the pending elections,” he told Evans Mensah, host of Top Story on Joy FM, Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Commission to immediately delete from the register names of the 56,739 persons who registered with National Health Insurance cards.
The court also ordered the Commission to delete persons whose names were not submitted to the Supreme Court but who registered with the NHIS cards.
The explicit orders to the EC follow months of confusion of a May 5 ruling by the Court.
Mr. Frank Davis says he expects the EC to publish the list of NHIS registrants to aid the process of deleting names of people who have registered to vote in the electoral register.
He says that would be the reasonable thing to do in order to facilitate the process and adhere to the Court’s direction that the deletion is carried out “forthwith”.
“If the EC wants to be fair to Ghanaians, the EC has to display the list of people who registered using NHIS cards,” he said.
He surmised that if the list is displayed, those who registered with NHIS cards can go to the EC and when they don’t find their names in the register.
Abu Ramadan, a member of the People’s National Convention (PNC) and one Evans Nimako proceeded to the Supreme Court to challenge the credibility of the voter’s register, seeking among other things, an order for a new voter’s register to be compiled.
They argued that the register in its current form had persons who registered with NHIS cards and therefore made the register non-credible to be used as a primary document for the general elections later this year.
The Court had already ruled in 2014 that it was illegal for the EC to register persons with NHIS cards.
In its May 5, 2016, judgment on the case brought by Ramadan and Nimako, the Supreme Court declined the relief sought by the plaintiff for a new register to be compiled but ordered the EC to clean the register by deleting names of minors, dead persons as well as NHIS card registrants.
But the EC insisted the order was not to delete the names of NHIS card registrants, a decision that forced the plaintiffs to go back to the Supreme Court for further orders and clarifications.
-myjoyonline