COURT RULES ON NANA VRS NDC

Above: Petitioners in court for the proceedings. Below: The 3rd respondent's officials

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Monday February 5, 2012.

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has filed an application for ‘further and better particulars’ to ask the Supreme Court to order three petitioners to furnish them with certain documents.

This is in respect of the case in which the three petitioners including New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate in the December 7 & 8, 2012 general elections, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, are challenging the validity of the election of John Dramani Mahama as President as declared by the Electoral Commission.

The initial respondents, President John Dramani Mahama and the EC have already moved similar applications before the highest court of the land and the nine-member panel chaired by Justice William Atuguba is due to give its rulings tomorrow, February 5.

The court in 6 – 3 majority decision, ruled that the ruling NDC could join to be part of the petition and subsequently made them 3^rd respondents in the case.

According to the NDC, they filed the application for ‘further and better particulars’ under Rule 69 A (4) of the Supreme Court (Amendment) Rules of C.I. 74.

The affidavits deposed to by NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah said that on December 28, 2012 “the petitioners filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the election of 1^st respondent (President Mahama) as President of the Republic of Ghana.”

He said “I have been advised by counsel and verily believe same to be true that whenever a party’s pleadings allege matters such as irregularity and malpractice the facts supporting these must be stated with particularity.”

He said the petitioners “failed to do this by not providing the particulars I am requesting for.”

The NDC General Secretary said that the ‘further and better particulars’ that he is requesting for  “are material facts which we are entitled and which if provided, will enable us know how to prepare for trial and also facilitate a fair disposal of the matters raised in the instant petition.”

The NDC in their application specifically wants “the particular polling stations where each of the irregularities pleaded allegedly occurred.”

They also want particulars on the numbers of votes deducted by the petitioners from the respective votes declared in favour of the respective candidates.

Furthermore, the NDC wants particulars of the instances where the petitioners claimed that “votes earned by the 1 petitioner (Akufo-Addo) were unlawfully reduced whilst at the same time votes of the 1^st respondent (Mahama) were illegally padded.”

The NDC again want particulars of the petitioners claim that “deliberate, well-calculated and executed ploy or a contrivance on the part of the respondents.”

They finally want particulars of the petitioners claim that “the results declared by the 2^nd respondent (EC) in (1^st repondent’s) favour were far in excess of the valid votes cast in his favour.”

In a related development NDC has filed its answer to the petition averring among other things that the petitioners have no case and must be thrown out.

The response which looks like a rehash of the 1^st respondent’s answer (President Mahama), denied each and every material allegation of fact and statement of law contained in the petition.

The NPP on January 31, filed an amended statement to the petition, averring that after completing their analysis of all the pink sheets available to them, they have found substantially more electoral violations and malpractices.

They said the alleged irregularities now affect 4,670,504 votes out of the 10,995,262 "valid" votes cast.