An Accra High Court has dismissed a suit filed by the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), challenging the Electoral Commission’s filing fees for nominees of the 2016 polls, which it considered exhorbitant and arbitrary.
The judge, who presided over the case, said she lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter, hence her decision to strike out the case.
[contextly_sidebar id=”G6Ud4zC5c1TnEBh9NwkDYvsmSKY247QU”]The PPP had earlier argued that, it did not have the amount the EC was requesting as filing fees for the presidential and parliamentary aspirants for this year’s general elections.
It is unclear whether the PPP would continue to pursue this particular case, especially when the party has a critical suit challenging the disqualification of Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom from the race based on supposed errors on his nomination form.
Background
The party earlier filed an interlocutory injunction at the High Court on September 19, seeking to restrain the EC from going ahead with the receipt of filing fees from presidential and parliamentary candidates a day before the date scheduled for filing.
This injunction prevented the EC from receiving the filing fees of the various parliamentary and presidential hopefuls, though it bizarrely accepted the filing fee of the PPP flagbearer, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, who was represented by the party’s Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond.
But the Commission was later given the go-ahead by the court to collect the filing fees.
The PPP, among other things, was seeking a declaration that Regulation 45 of C.I. 94 is discriminatory, arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.
The EC opened the nominations earlier in September and pegged the filing fees for presidential hopefuls at GHc 50,000 and that of parliamentary nominees at GHc 10,000.
Some aggrieved parties subsequently asked the EC to review the amount describing it as “exorbitant.”
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By: Fred Djabanor/citifmonline.com/Ghana