‘Their case is incompetent’ – Gloria Akuffo files response to NDC suit against EC

The Attorney General (AG) wants the Supreme Court (SC) to throw out the suit filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) against the compilation of a new voter roll because it lacks legal basis.

According to the AG, the suit is “patently absurd, far-fetched, outrageous and grossly erroneous” because it is not grounded in law.

Ghana is heading to the polls at the end of the year, and the Electoral Commission (EC) will be compiling a new voter roll to expunge names of unqualified people from their database.

Ahead of the exercise, the EC has laid before Parliament the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) to make the Ghana Card and the Ghanaian passport the legal identification documents for registering people in the new biometric voters’ register.

The only option left for people without the two identification cards is for two registered voters to vouch for the applicant.

However, the opposition NDC has kicked against the move, describing it as unlawful.

They proceeded to the Supreme Court with a suit in March against the AG as the first defendant and the EC as the second defendant.

Among the reliefs they sought was a “declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 45(a) of the 1992 Constitution, 2nd Defendant has the constitutional power to, and can, compile a register of voters only once, and thereafter revise it periodically, as may be determined by law.”

“Accordingly, [the] 2nd Defendant 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.”

Additionally, they wanted the court to pronounce the decision by the EC to exclude existing voter identification cards as valid identification “unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect”.

In response, the AG stated in its statement of case signed by Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, that the NDC “has no cause of action as there is no enactment properly so-called in respect of which the action has been instituted”.

Ms Akuffo argued that the proposed constitutional instrument, the subject matter of dispute, “has not come into force in accordance with Article 11(7) of the Constitution.”

The AG found a number of the reliefs to be “procedurally incompetent and not cognisable as reliefs that may properly be applied for, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction under Articles 2(1) and 130(1) of the Constitution”.

The AG indicated that the suit hinged on a C.I. which is yet to be passed by Parliament and may not come into effect until at least June 5, 2020.

“In point of fact, presently, and at all material times since the commencement of the plaintiffs’ action, there is no C. I. properly so-called enacted, which is part of the laws of Ghana. The proposed C. I. is going through the procedures constitutionally mandated in Article 11(7) before it can be called ‘legislation’ or ‘enactment’,” the AG argued.

“To strike the proposed constitutional instrument down as unconstitutional will amount to an interference with the powers of Parliament under Article 11(7),” the AG added.

Therefore, the AG concluded that the plaintiffs failed to properly invoke the original jurisdiction of the apex court as there was neither a genuine case of constitutional interpretation nor a violation of a specific provision of the Constitution.

Responding to the use of voter ID cards for the new registration, the AG averred that : “the plaintiff bore the burden of proof in relation to the material contentions of the intended exclusion of the old voter identification card as a means of proving one’s identity as Ghanaian is a matter fully within the discretion of the second defendant”.

The AG defended the EC’s decision of excluding voter ID cards by stating that: “the power of the second defendant EC to compile and revise the register of voters at such periods of time may not be controlled by any person or authority save in plain cases of unconstitutionality.”

The AG was of the view that the procedure or ways to authenticate a Ghanaian’s citizenship “under the proposed constitutional instrument seeks to protect the right of the Ghanaian to vote under Article 42 as it assures that only Ghanaians of full age and sound mind register to vote.”

Meanwhile, the legal representatives of the EC have also kicked against the claims of the NDC. The EC’s team also filed their statement of case in relation to the suit.