{"id":217374,"date":"2016-05-26T22:57:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T22:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=217374"},"modified":"2016-05-26T22:57:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T22:57:34","slug":"lawyers-disagree-on-voters-register-ruling-despite-judges-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=217374","title":{"rendered":"Voters’ register ruling: Ndebugri, Adom Otchere disagree despite judge’s comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

A private legal practitioner, John Ndebugri, has said the recent comments<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by Justice Jones Dotse, a member of the panel of Supreme Court judges who ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to clean it’s register, do not differ from the EC\u2019s interpretation of the ruling.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media yesterday [Thursday], Justice Dotse intimated that there was no ambiguity to the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling on the credibility of the voters’ register as it had said the use of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) cards as proof of identity was unconstitutional hence the directive to clean the register of \u201cundesirable persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”HDMQes6GE8t7lW99Cp5SsLpEP0MWGWL7″]The EC in contrast has explained that the ruling on the voters\u2019 register did not instruct it<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to delete the names of persons who registered with NHIS cards ahead of the 2012 elections.<\/p>\n

Justice Dotse\u2019s comments misinterpreted<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Ndebugri has already publicly backed<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the EC\u2019s response to the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling and speaking on Eyewitness News<\/strong>, he suggested that Justice Dotse\u2019s comments were being misinterpreted because he viewed them to be in line with EC\u2019s stance on the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see how the Justice has differed from what some of us have said\u2026 I don\u2019t see why you have jumped and said that he has said anything different from what we have been saying. He has confirmed what we have been saying. He stated what we have stated in rather fewer words.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Undesirable elements’<\/strong><\/p>\n

The key phrase for Mr. Ndebugri, as far as Justice Dotse\u2019s comments are concerned, is the use of \u201cundesirable elements\u201d.<\/p>\n

He insisted that the use of \u201cundesirable elements\u201d by the Justice only applied to non-Ghanaians who may have used the NHIS card to register as voters.<\/p>\n

According to \u00a0Ndebugri, \u201cIf you used the National Health Insurance card and you registered and you were not a Ghanaian, you are an undesirable element. If you were Ghanaian and used the National Health Insurance card and registered, you are not an undesirable element.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Justice Dotse has not departed from anything we are saying. He said undesirable elements must be removed. Those are the ones who used the National Health Insurance identify card who are not Ghanaians,” Mr. Ndebugri explained further.<\/p>\n

Justice Dotse\u2019s comments pave the way for definite interpretation<\/strong><\/p>\n

But seasoned broadcaster, Paul Adom Otchere, has indicated that Justice Dotse\u2019s comments rather reinforced the Court’s directive to remove the names of NHIS registrants.<\/p>\n

\"Paul
Paul Adom Otchere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also speaking on Eyewitness News<\/strong>, he acknowledged that the EC may have initially misconstrued the ruling but expressed hope that Supreme Court would now come out with a clearer explanation\u00a0of their directive to the EC.<\/p>\n

According to him, \u201cThey [the EC] said that they did not understand the Supreme Court ruling to mean that [removal of NHIS registrants] so you can\u2019t fault them for that. Now that the judge has spoken informally saying that this is what they meant, I believe that steps are being taken to get the court to be able to say that this is what they meant because this was a unanimous decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have come to a crossroads where it appears that one of the judges has spoken informally and said that we actually meant that you should delete the names so we wait to see what happens,\u201d Mr. Adom Otchere added.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A private legal practitioner, John Ndebugri, has said the recent comments by Justice Jones Dotse, a member of the panel of Supreme Court judges who ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to clean it’s register, do not differ from the EC\u2019s interpretation of the ruling. Speaking to the media yesterday [Thursday], Justice Dotse intimated that there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":216127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2647,2648,10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2647","category-election","category-slider-1","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=217374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/216127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=217374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=217374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=217374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}