A deputy director of legal affairs for the NDC, Baba Jamal says anyone who blames Asiedu Nketia for misinterpreting the Supreme Court’s ruling does not understand the law.
According to Mr. Jamal, the verdict by the Court yesterday was unclear such that “for about fifteen minutes (15) minutes after the ruling, all the lawyers present in court were brainstorming to get the meaning of it because it was very confusing”.
READ MORE : Supreme Court gives EC green light to compile voter’s register
The Electoral Commission (EC) has been given the go ahead by the Supreme Court to compile a new voter’s register for the 2020 general elections without the use of the existing ID as a breeder document.
The Supreme Court ordered the Commission and all its stakeholders to comply with Articles 42 and 45 of the Constitution and the CI 126 Public Election (Registration of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations, 2020.
The C.I. 126 makes the Ghana Card and the Ghanaian passport the only legal identification documents to be used for the compilation of biometric voters’ register.
But, the general secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia in an interview shortly after the ruling claimed the NDC had been vindicated. For him, the Court has allowed the use of the current Voter ID for the compilation of the new register. He has since then received some backlash from the public and some legal practioners for his contrary view.
According to Baba Jamal, out of the eight reliefs in the suit the party petitioned the court, two most “critical” were agreed upon by the court, including the Relief 3, accrued rights. He added that, in Ghana’s case, the current voter ID is the symbol of accrued rights.
“…as Ghanaian, anybody who has voted all these years has an accrued right. So the old card is a prima facie of an accrued right. It is symbolized by the voters ID and the Court said we should. So we concluded in the court room that we could use the old card”.
He added it was until, they received the court order and analyzed it then they got the meaning of the verdict. As such, he said anyone who blames the general secretary does not understand the law.
“Preliminary, since they the Court agreed and accepted that we have accrued rights then it meant we could go through the registration with our current ID. So, the general secretary did not just speak out of vacuum, he spoke based on the third relief they presented which was granted”.
Source: Victoria Enyonam Adonu / ATL FM NEWS
