Election 2020: Court throws out Kofi Koranteng’s case against EC over disqualification

The Accra High Court has dismissed an application filed by a disqualified independent candidate against Ghana’s Electoral Commission.

Kofi Koranteng had dragged the Electoral Commission to court alleging that his administrative rights under Article 23 of the 1992 Constitution had been violated.

With just seven days to December 7 elections and a day to Special voting, the court presided over by Justice Gifty Agyei-Addo has thrown out the application.

It was the view of the court that the nature of violation the applicant was alleging is not one that the regulation 7 (2) of the EC allows for an amendment.

The court said that it was clear from the applicant’s own affidavit in support of his case that he admitted to the kind of errors made per paragraph 11 of his affidavits.

Justice Addo said the applicant’s rights to natural justice has not been violated and dismissed the application a day before Special Voting starts.

The applicant together with four others have been disqualified on cases that border on allegations of forgery of signatures and manufacturing of endorsees.

Last Thursday while moving his applicatin to challenge the decision by the Electoral Commission (EC) he said the EC gave him a window of hope to resubmit a corrected nomination form, only to be disqualified.

According to him, issues regarding fraud and forgery are criminal in nature. He argued through his lawyer, Daniyal Abdul-Karim, who told the court that he was given the opportunity to resubmit beyond the October 9 deadline.

But the EC legal team led by Justine Amenuvor categorically denied that assertion by the applicant and said the EC never gave the applicant any hope of opportunity.

According to him, the regulations required all applicants to file and if any anomalies are detected, they are corrected within the stipulated period.

He told the court that nomination for all candidates was opened on October 5 and closed on October 9, 2020.