NDC back in court for review of SC’s judgement on exclusion of birth cert

The legal tussle between the biggest  opposition party and the Electoral Commission is not over, as the National Democratic Congress heads back to court for the second time.

This time, the NDC says it has filed an application for the review of the Supreme Court’s judgment on the exclusion of the old voter ID card and birth certificates from the list of valid documents needed for the Electoral Commission’s registration exercise.

The party, in a statement signed by its Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, stated that “we have placed their concerns before the Supreme Court for it to take a second look at its own judgement, and if possible on matters that we think are fundamental to citizenship and the right to vote in this country.”

The party argued that the Supreme Court came to its conclusions “without due and proper regard for existing laws, and in many cases, without the requisite supporting evidence.”

It maintains that registering births and deaths has been a basic element in official national record-keeping.

“A Ghanaian birth certificate shows one’s date and place of birth, age, parentage, and nationality; precisely the kind of information that would be required for any form of voter registration.”

The NDC further argued that “holders of existing voter ID cards have acquired rights based on the fact that the EC has gone through a process of identifying them, ascertaining their ages and nationality and has adjudged them to be eligible to vote.”

“What surprises us is that it is the same Electoral Commission which issued these cards at high expense to the state, that is now alleging strenuously, with hardly any proof, that its own process of issuing those cards was so poisoned that those cards should not be accepted as proof of identity,” it added.

The exercise which started on June 30, is only accepting the new ECOWAS Ghana card and a valid passport as forms of identification.

The NDC feels this status quo will lead to many Ghanaians being disenfranchised and was opposed to it even before it had been passed in Parliament.

“As a political party, when the judgement was delivered, we did not hide our disappointment but we were powerless to do anything about it because the reasons for the judgement were not given until July 15, 20 days after the judgement was announced,” excerpts of the statement read.