The Electoral Commission has welcomed the Supreme Court’s judgement following a suit it filed challenging a High Court’s decision to overturn the disqualification of Flagbearer of Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Papa Kwesi Nduom, from the December presidential election.
The Supreme Court on Monday threw out the EC’s case challenging the disqualification, and ordered the Commission to rather extend the nomination period to the close of Tuesday, November,8 2016, for all disqualified presidential aspirants.
[contextly_sidebar id=”pMgZH1NWiYgdEmoJ4o9CmgE2OFj6gy5a”]The judges also ordered a suspension of all lawsuits challenging the EC’s disqualifications of flagbearers, for all those affected 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 qualification, due to limited time left for the election to be held.
Speaking to journalists minutes after the judgement, Lawyer for the EC, Thaudeus Sory , described the judgement as “ victory for democracy.”
He explained that, the EC came to the court on three grounds; error of law, wrongful assumption of jurisdiction and excess of jurisdiction, adding that though the court dismissed the EC’s second ground for filing the suit it upheld the third one.
“It is a victory for democracy. The court was very categorical in its orders. We came here on three grounds,error of law, wrongful assumption of jurisdiction and excess of jurisdiction and the court agreed with us that while there was evidence that there was an error of law in the case of the record, it did not go to the court’s jurisdiction so it would not quash it. It dismissed our second grounds but upheld our third ground. “
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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