Ghana: Compilation of New Voters Register – SC to Deliver Judgement On June 23

The Supreme Court will on June 23, 2020 deliver judgement on whether or not the existing voters’ identification card should be used as form of identification in the upcoming mass voters’ registration exercise later this month.

On March 26, 2020, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) dragged the Attorney-General and the EC to the apex court over the decision by the Commission to compile a fresh electoral roll for the December 7, 2020 polls.

A seven-member panel of the court presided over by the Chief Justice Anin Yeboah adjourned the case after lawyers for the NDC, the EC and the A-G made legal arguments to support their case.

The EC had stated that it would compile a new voters’ register for the presidential and parliamentary elections because the existing register was incurably defective for the purpose.

But the NDC, the biggest opposition political party in Ghana insisted that the exclusion of existing voters’ ID card as a form of identification to obtain a new voters’ ID card was unconstitutional.

At proceedings yesterday, counsel for the NDC, Godwin Tamakloe said the SC had held in the Abu Ramadan case that the existing voters’ register for all practical purposes was a prima facie evidence of one’s identity.

[…]

The party want the court to hold that, upon a true and proper interpretation of the provisions of the constitution, particularly article 42, upon the registration of and issuance of a voter identification card to a person, that person has an accrued right to vote which cannot be divested in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

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