Supreme Court to hear NDC’s case challenging new voters’ register today

The Supreme Court will today, Thursday, June 4, 2020 hear the case in which the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is challenging the decision by the Electoral Commission to compile a new voters’ register.

According to the NDC, the EC lacks the power to go ahead with its plans because it can only “compile a register of voters only once, and thereafter revise it periodically, as may be determined by law. Accordingly, EC 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.”

The NDC is also asking the court to declare as unlawful the EC’s decision to bar the use of the old voter ID cards for identification in the compilation of the new register.

It said the action is baseless and in breach of the Constitution.

The party wants a “declaration that the EC, in purporting to exercise its powers pursuant to article 51 of the 1992 Constitution to exclude the existing voter identification cards from the documents required as proof of identification to enable a person register as a voter without any justification is arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and contrary to article 296 of the 1992 Constitution.”

“Upon a true and proper interpretation of the Constitution, specifically, Article 42, the EC’s purported amendment of Regulation 1 sub-regulation 3 of the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2016 (C.I 91) through the Public Elections (Registration of Voters)(Amendment) Regulations, 2020 to exclude existing voter identification cards as proof of identification to enable a person apply for registration as a voter” according to the NDC is “unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever.”

Source: Source Link