NANA VRS MAHAMA SET FOR TODAY

Petitioners getting ready for court

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday March 14, 2013

The Supreme Court will this morning commence hearing into the landmark petition in which three leading members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) are challenging the declaration of John Dramani Mahama as President by the Electoral Commission (EC) in the December 7&8, 2012 general election.

The court was due to fix a definite date for the main petition to commence when National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters filed applications in droves to ask the court to allow them to join the petition.

Once the applications numbering about 40 filed by close to 500 NDC members have been given a returning date (March 14), the court will have no option but to dispose them off before anything meaningful can be done in the case.

The three petitioners NPP presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, his running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the party’s Chairman, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey have already filed an application for directions in setting out the memorandum of issues in the petition.

Attempted Delay

The joinder applications by the NDC supporters are seen as a ploy to delay the court process.

Some legal experts are of the view that once the applicants have the same averment it is most likely the court will select one of the applications and use it as a test case after which the decision on that application will apply for the rest.

As it is, if the highest court of the land allows them to join, the progress made so far in the case would be grounded to allow the applicants to file their answers to the petition.

Further & Better Particulars

Strangely, it was after the nine-member panel presided over by Justice William Atuguba ordered the petitioners to furnish the respondents with ‘further and better particulars’ that the NDC supporters started flooding the courts with the applications.

Source of Applications

Even though the applicants are scattered all over Ghana, their applications were prepared in either Accra or Tema.

The first nine applications to hit the court’s registry had the stamps of Urafiki Law Consult, Ghana Commercial Bank Main, 1^st Floor, Near Meridian Hotel, Tema.

In the second batch of applications, they have the stamps of Deleric Law Consult, House No. 25 Watson Avenue, Behind Holy Spirit Cathedral, Adabraka Accra.

Subtle Collaboration

DAILY GUIDE has information that some of the clerks of the respondents are the ones helping the applicants to file the processes at the court’s registry.

As at press time yesterday, more NDC supporters were said to be making frantic efforts to file applications to also join the petition.

A cursory look at all the applications would show that the applicants are initiating the action after the petitioners were made to provide details of all the polling stations where they claim irregularities or malpractices occurred.

To confirm the suspicion, all the applications state that “We are surprised to hear that the petitioners have in the present petition identified our polling station as one of those whose entire results should be annulled by the Honourable Court on grounds stated in the said petition.”

Coincidentally, all the about 500 applicants have the same averments in their affidavits in support of the motions for joinder and they also have the same addresses as group members.

Arguments

Their line of argument appear similar to what the 1^{st respondent} (President John Dramani Mahama) and 3^{rd respondent,} (National Democratic Congress - NDC) cited in the main petition filed as their answers.

They are claiming that there were no protests by any of the contesting political parties when the results were declared and added that the process were so “transparent and compliant that after the declaration of the results, there was no dispute about the winner; and we all accepted the results as true and binding on us in the said polling station.”

“As voters who had lawfully exercise their franchise, we say that we are directly interested in the outcome of the petition. We also wish to protect our validly cast votes, based on which the results of the Presidential elections were held.”

They say that since the petitioners are seeking to annul some votes, the court should allow them to join the case to protect their votes.

“We would suffer irreparable hardship if our votes were cancelled, in that we would have been denied our constitutional right to be part of the decision making  process of the country, a right which, we are advised by counsel, is guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution and is inalienable and which cannot be compensated in anyway whatsoever.”