The Supreme Court has ordered the Electoral Commission to extend the nomination period to the close of Tuesday, November 8 2016 for all disqualified presidential aspirants.
The judges also ordered a suspension of all lawsuits challenging the EC’s disqualifications of flagbearers, for affected parties to amend the errors on their forms.
In explaining the judgment of the seven-member panel of Justices, the presiding Justice, Sophia Adinyira, said their decision was to enable the EC give hearing to all parties involved in the legal tussle over the disqualification, due to limited time left for the election to be held.
The Commission had asked the Apex Court to review an earlier judgement by a high court and hopefully bring closure to the five other lawsuits contesting the disqualification of other presidential aspirants.
Background
The EC rejected Dr. Nduom’s nomination claiming the number of subscribers to his forms did not meet the requirements of Regulation 7 (2) (b) of CI 94 [the law regulating the conduct of the 2016 elections].
The Commission said one of his [Dr. Nduom’s] subscribers, endorsed the form with different signatures in both portions of the nomination form, raising questions as to the legitimacy of one or both signatures.
But lawyers of the PPP argued that, the EC did not give them the opportunity to correct the errors on the nomination forms.
The court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, subsequently ordered the Commission to give the PPP the chance to correct the anomalies on the nomination forms of its Flagbearer, and subsequently decide whether to accept him inn the race or not.
But the EC said it disgareed with the ruling, hence it’s decision to go to the Supreme Court.
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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana