A Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, is urging the Supreme Court to merge the new case filed against the Electoral Commission with the other case due for judgement on June 23.
This according to him is because both cases relate to the EC’s decision to compile a new voters’ register.
The NDC is in court asking the Apex Court to direct the Electoral Commission to allow eligible Ghanaians to use the existing voter’s ID card as proof of citizenship.
The party had earlier challenged the EC’s decision to compile a new register but abandoned that cause after the court asked it to clarify what relief it wanted to be granted.
The court had fixed June 23 to deliver its decision on whether or not existing voters’ ID cards can be used in the upcoming registration exercise.
But as the EC and the nation await this judgement, a new suit was filed against the Commission.
Describing himself in his writ as a native of Breman-Kokoso in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District of the Central Region, Mark Takyi-Banson is challenging the decision of the commission to use the Ghana Card and the Ghanaian passport as the only identification documents.
He wants the EC to be directed to include a birth certificate and the existing voters’ ID card as evidence of identification in the upcoming mass voters’ registration exercise.
He also wants the Supreme Court to order the EC to include under Regulation 1 (3) of the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations, 2020 (C.I. 126), the existing voter identification card issued by the EC as evidence of identification.
Mr Takyi-Banson in his writ is also seeking a declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 45(a) of the 1992 Constitution, the EC’s constitutional and statutory mandate to compile the register of voters for the conduct and supervision of all public elections and referenda is spent saving only the power reserved in the Commission to revise and expand the register at such periods as may be determined by law.
Deputy AG Godfred Dame has since filed a motion at the Supreme Court asking that it merges the two cases.
The motion will be argued on Friday June 19 at the Supreme Court.
