{"id":254086,"date":"2016-10-02T12:59:21","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T12:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=254086"},"modified":"2016-10-02T12:59:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T12:59:21","slug":"ppp-to-sue-ec-again-for-contempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/10\/ppp-to-sue-ec-again-for-contempt\/","title":{"rendered":"PPP to sue EC again for contempt"},"content":{"rendered":"
It appears the Electoral Commission’s hurdles will not go away anytime soon with barely two months to the elections.<\/p>\n
The Progressive People\u2019s Party (PPP), which is already in court against the Commission’s filing fees for presidential and parliamentary nominees, has indicated it will sue the Commission again for contempt, over its decision to accept their Flagbearer’s filing fee, despite an injunction prohibiting that\u00a0action.<\/p>\n
The PPP\u00a0filed a suit at the High Court<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0early this month, seeking an interlocutory injunction to prevent the Commission\u00a0from receiving the nominations in protest against what they describe as \u201chigh\u201d filing fees set by the EC for aspirants.<\/p>\n According to the Chairman of the PPP, Allotey Brew Hammond, although they asked the Commission to return the bank draft\u00a0after the presentation on Friday, the EC Chair, refused to hand it back to them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have started the motion of talking to our lawyers to get the processes of filing for contempt because our relief was to have the EC not to accept any filing fee and since they have accepted our filing fee, they are in contempt of the injunction,\u201d Mr Brew Hammond told Citi News.<\/strong><\/p>\n Reacting to claims the PPP deliberately presented their filing fee to the EC as a trap and that the PPP is also in contempt for presenting the fee, the party Chairman said,<\/p>\n \u201cWe will leave it to the judges to tell us if offering and accepting are the same thing. Even if we trapped them [EC], we made the effort to remind the Commission that they were not supposed to accept but they [EC] objected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018EC accepts filing fees\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In an interesting twist last week, the Commission accepted the filing fee of the Progressive People\u2019s Party<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>(PPP) flagbearer despite an interlocutory injunction placed on the process by the\u00a0same party.<\/p>\n Charlotte Osei justifies receipt of PPP\u2019s filing fee despite suit<\/strong><\/p>\n The Electoral Commission Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, has defended the decision<\/a><\/strong><\/span> of the election management body to accept the filing fee of the Progressive People\u2019s Party (PPP), saying\u00a0the Commission accepted the filing fee because they assumed the party was no longer interested\u00a0pursuing the case in court.<\/p>\n \u201cBy presenting it; I thought they had withdrawn the case, that was the impression,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u2018We didn\u2019t trick EC\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The Director of Operations for the Progressive People\u2019s Party (PPP), Nana Ofori Owusu, has stated that the party had no intention of tricking\u00a0the Electoral Commission<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Speaking on Citi FM\u2019s news analysis programme, The Big Issue<\/strong>, Nana Owusu said by presenting their nomination forms with the filing fees, the PPP was only doing what was required by law.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>PPP could face contempt over filing fee submission<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n