Supreme Court lauded for ordering EC to behave

The Supreme Court (SC) has been lauded after it descended heavily on the Electoral Commission (EC) for feet dragging in implementing orders to clean up the voters' register.

A legal practitioner Nana Asante Bediatuo says the SC by its fresh orders yesterday has “virtually taken over” the process of cleaning up the register deemed bloated.

The SC was in full fury when it gave the EC six days to submit a list of all illegal persons on the electoral roll because they registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card, declared unconstitutional.

The new order comes after the EC failed to implement a May 5 order to expunge the names of persons who used the NHIS cards to register from the electoral roll.

The Commission claimed that the order did not state that NHIS registrants ought to be removed, a postured that incensed the opposition politician Abu Ramadan who returned to the court for clarity on its orders.

The commission’s explanation was perceived to be dilly-dallying. In an unusual turn of events in court, the Chief Justice Georgina Wood led her colleague judges in condemning the EC.

Nana Asante Bediatuo who is lawyer for Abu Ramadan, believes the EC deserved the reaction it got from the judges.

He said since May 2014, the EC has been reluctant to implement a Supreme Court judgment that the NHIS card is not a proper means of identifying a Ghanaian citizen for purposes of registering as a voter.

“They wait two years, do nothing, in fact, thwart efforts of the plaintiffs to get them to do the right thing, they now come to court, orders are given, they are told to implement those orders immediately, and six to seven weeks later, nothing is done”.

He said the move by the SC “is a good thing for constitutional law, [that] the Supreme Court takes steps to manage the process so that the constitution is respected."

Nana Asante Bediatuo believes that the credibility of the voters register is a “major political issue which can blow up in all our faces,” if the EC is left to act arbitrarily.

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