Ghanaian Lawyer and Politician Alex Segbefia has disclosed that the recent judgement by the Supreme Court has given the National Democratic Congress (NDC) no option but to join the registration process for a new voters’ register.
In an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show (HMS), he explained that without a final judgement by the apex court, the NDC will not have the chance to request for an injunction on the registration.
“It is unfortunate because technically it has tied the hands of NDC. If you were to go for a review or to question the judgement, you will need to have the final judgement.and without the final judgement, you will have an EC that has put its own interpretation on what you said. And their interpretation is not what the NDC feels is the correct interpretation.
But the Electoral Commission (EC) has an exercise which they are going to start on Tuesday and the court has also in their supplementary statement said that the EC should be allowed to go ahead which means that even if you apply for an injunction you will not get it”, he said.
In the light of this situation, Alex Segbefia divulged that the NDC will not allow their people to be disenfranchised even more and as such have advised their people to register for a new voter’s register as prescribed by the EC.
“The court said it will give its full complement on the 16th of July. So technically the EC will do a full registration for two weeks before you will ask for clarity or even if what they say is different you would have lost two weeks. Because of that, we cannot allow our people to be left hanging. Although we still pursue and seek clarity, we see a deliberate attempt by the EC to disenfranchise our people in the interim. And we have no guarantee that our interpretation is even what is going to be accepted. So instead of getting ourselves in the position where our people will be disenfranchised even more, then they will be under the current interpretation of the EC. Our flagbearer has said that our people should go out and register. Not to register will not be in our interest because that is exactly what the whole game plan has been from the onset”, he added.
On Thursday, June 25, 2020, the Supreme Court decided that the existing voter ID card and birth certificates cannot be used as proof of identity to register in the upcoming voter registration exercise. This judgement effectively throws out the challenge by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and a private citizen, Mark Takyi-Banson, who were before the Court questioning the Electoral Commission’s (EC) decision to compile an entirely new register and exclude the existing voter ID.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
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