We should be sincere with ourselves …..Supreme Court ruled against use of NHIS cards (Part One)

Ebo Quansah in Accra

ABU RAMADAN.PIX

With the national vote barely five months away, it is only natural that concerns are being raised about the need for peace to hold before, during, and after the elections. Day in and day out, public exhortations are aired on the electronic and print media. It is obvious peace is of essence.

Mr. Stephen Appiah, the former skipper of the Black Stars, the national senior soccer team, has gone one step further and arranged an international charity match involving crack international stars, who are scheduled to arrive in the country to feature in two matches –the first against Asante Kotoko at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi on Wednesday, June 8, and at the Accra Sports Stadium where the Black Stars of Ghana would feature against these world stars.

As a prelude to the two matches, Mr. Appiah and his organisers have visited the Office of the President to invite the Head of State. President John Dramani Mahama has since given his blessing to the endeavour to raise awareness, using the powerful medium of football, which is generally referred to as the passion of the nation.

The former captain, who led the Black Stars to that enthralling World Cup assignment in Germany in 2006, and played a pivotal role in the glittering performance of Ghana all the way to the quarter-finals of the gathering of the elites of the global game in South Africa 2010, has paid courtesy calls on the two former heads of state, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings and Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor, who have both endorsed the idea of using football to foster peace, as this nation prepares for the vote.

Mr. Appiah has also solicited and got the blessings of almost all the leaders of the various religious groups in the country. He has been blessed by the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Ousman Nuhu Sharubutu, and sought audience with traditional rulers. It is all well and good sensitising the people to uphold the tenets of peace, as the vote gets nearer. With the hindsight of the experience from our neighbouring countries of Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Liberia, which nationals tore into each other in senseless civil conflicts, it is good to make citizens aware of the need for peace to hold.

Having made this statement, I would like to submit here that there are more sensitive issues that we all appear to be glossing over, and which could provide the basis for a civil conflict, if not properly handled.

The major source of conflicts generated by elections is the belief, usually on the part losing candidates and their supporters, that the supervising agency, in our case the Electoral Commission, had not been seen to be fair to all contesting parties and their candidates.

That is why fair-play, especially, on the part of the Electoral Commission, is of essence in all things leading to the vote and after. The commission must be seen to be doing things according to the law, and not according to the wishes of the leadership.

Secondly, the commission must build bridges and interpret laws and regulations governing the conduct of the vote in a manner that would leave no one in any doubt about the genuine intentions of its leadership.

Unfortunately, the Electoral Commission of Ghana has not warmed itself into the hearts of the opposition especially. Since Mrs. Charlotte Osei was sprung from her virtually redundant role at the National Commission on Civic Education to head the Electoral Commission, the commission appears not to be on friendly grounds with the opposition New Patriotic Party.

The party's request for a new voters' register to provide a clean basis for the November poll was brushed aside, as if there was no merit in the proposal. Citing time constraint and lack of resources, the new Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, by her posture and utterances, has not put herself forward as someone prepared to take opposition views especially on board. The irony is that officials of the ruling National Democratic Congress virtually speak for and on behalf of the commission.

When the NPP tabled the motion that the national electoral register, as currently compiled, has names of registered voters who appear to vote in Ghana as well as Togo, the EC virtually snubbed the suggestion. This raised the political temperature in this country unnecessarily.

With this state of affairs, one expected the commission to interpret the ruling of the Supreme Court in the petition brought before the nation's highest court strictly according to what the Supreme Court ordered. Instead, the Electoral Commission is dancing around the verdict.

The Supreme Court instructed the Electoral Commission to delete from the electoral roll names of persons who used National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards as a form of identity to register to vote in the next elections.

The reason for this directive is the general perception that the register, in its current form, is bloated and not reasonably credible for the exercise. In its own wisdom, the Supreme Court also ordered the commission to allow those whose names would be removed, because they used the NHIS card to register, a window of opportunity to re-register.

The plaintiffs were Abu Ramadan, former Youth Organiser of the People's National Congress, Evans Nimako, described as a farmer, and Danso Acheampong, listed as a lawyer. I am told that the second petitioner, Mr. Nimako, is a sympathiser of the opposition NPP. The political link of the petitioners is the least of my worries.

What is of essence is what the Supreme Court ordered, and its interpretation. The petitioners had argued that one did not necessarily have to be a citizen to hold an NHIS card, and that accepting the card as basis to register a person to vote in national elections, was a violation of the Constitution.

The Chief Justice, Mrs. Georgina Theodora Wood, presided over the panel and read the judgment. She said the use of the NHIS cards to register voters was inconsistent with Article 42 of the Constitution.

Under Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution, every citizen of Ghana of 18 years and above, and of sound mind, has the right to register, and is entitled to be registered as a voter for the purpose of pubic elections and referenda.

One does not need to be a legal luminary to understand this judgment delivered in clear English. Unfortunately, the Electoral Commission has flatly refused to abide by this ruling.

The EC said, in a statement, that the commission would not delete any names of NHIS card bearers, on the basis that the affected people would be dis-enfranchised. Instead, they intend to organise a public exhibition, as the law of the land stipulates, and allow those raising objection to any name on the register to go through the normal legal means of getting any such names expunged from the register.

The commission enjoys the support of some legal experts and officials of the NDC. Mr. John Ndebugri, a former Member of Parliament and a legal heavyweight, and Dr. Raymond Akogburo Atuguba, Senior Lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, have put their reputations at stake in what I call bogus interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling.

Dr. Atuguba argued in an article he authored that that “the Supreme Court, by its verdict, had not ordered the automatic de-registration of persons who registered with NHIS cards.”

Read the eminent lawyer: “The Supreme Court did not order that persons who registered with the NHIS identity cards ARE or should be automatically de-registered by the Electoral Commission. What the court said is that such an exercise must be done according to law, in this case, the Public Election (Registration of voters) Regulations, 2016 (C.I.91). From the mouth of the court and at pages 22 is the following:

“In our view, following the previous decision of this court in the Abu Ramadan case, by which the use of the cards for registration was declared unconstitutional, the continued presence of names on the register that derive their identification from the said cards, renders the register not reasonably accurate or credible. In coming to this view of the matter, we are not dis-regarding the report of the panel, which is part of the processes before us in these proceedings as exhibit “ABU6” that the register of voters is bloated, a fact which is not controverted by the defendants. We are in great difficulty, however, agreeing with the plaintiffs that by virtue only of the said infraction, the entire register has the attribute of unconstitutionality.”

For me, the verdict is clear. The names of those who registered with NHIS cards, as a form of identity, could qualify to be in the register and vote, only when they take advantage of an opportunity to be afforded them by the Electoral Commission to re-register. Period!

I shall return!