DON'T TAKE REFORMS FOR GRANTED ... EC TOLD

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday, August 30, 2014

A law Professor, H. Kwasi Prempeh says he is disappointed in the Supreme Court for failing to order the Electoral Commission (EC) to take steps to lead the reformation of the country’s electoral system.

He said the recommendation made by majority of the judges to the EC after the landmark Presidential Election Petition last year, are equivalent to what he called “a non-binding advice.”

“It is simply to say that in or themselves those recommendations cannot compel the EC to do those things that have been recommended and with an EC such as we have, you need more than recommendation to get it to act,” he said.

Prof. Prempeh who currently serves on the CDD board and teaches corporate, international business, and constitutional law courses at Seton Hall University School of Law at Newark, New Jersey in the United States was delivering a lecture on the first anniversary of the court’s verdict in Accra yesterday.

The forum was put together by policy analysis think tank IMANI Centre for Policy and Education in collaboration with a pressure group, Occupy Ghana Event to review the entire process of the petition, the verdict and recommendations.

Prof. Prempeh said even though the recommendations are ‘analogous to a non-binding advice’ it was not open to anybody to shred the advice.

He said the reforms recommended by the court are in my view rather minimalist. They set relatively low bar. We should use it at best only as a starting point for developing an agenda for reform.”

He said  the judgements of the majority on the bench left Ghanaians more questions than answers thereby creating more uncertainty about the legal standards for conducting a valid presidential election in Ghana or for successfully challenging the validity of a declared result.

“Such uncertainty as well as the lingering perception following the 2013 petition that the judicial challenge of such a petition has rather poor prospects does not auger well for peaceful and orderly conduct of elections in the future,” he said adding “instead of giving us clarity and certainty on the law of elections petitions, what we got from the majority were some recommendations.”

He said that unfortunately, those recommendations were bereft of legal authority saying “when a court needs to compel a party to abide by its decision it proceeds with an order to that party, it does not make recommendations.”

Prof. Prempeh shredded the majority’s decision that had said President John Dramani Mahama was validly elected in December 2012 saying “it is regrettably of dubious value,” and added that the court’s judgement could serve any useful academic purpose.

He said that Ghanaians had been taking for granted the relative peace in the country saying that the last two elections had tested “how we can maintain our reputation as peaceful and democratic nation.”

He said the time has come for the electorate to demand more not only from the EC but other notable actors like the judiciary, government, NIA as well as the public.

Notable speakers included Franklin Cudjoe of IMANI who delivered the welcome address, Abraham Amaliba of the NDC, Samson Lardi Ayenini, Egbert Faibille Jnr as well a CODEO representative who were all discussants.

There was also an open forum where participants contributed to the discussion with almost every contributor urging the EC to take advantage of the period to reform the electoral system.

Initially, IMANI announced that when they invited the EC to the programme, they declined to attend citing busy schedule but just as the programme was winding up, Nana Kwaku Duodu, a Principal Electoral Officer at the Elections Department of the EC stepped in to represent the commission.

It was evident he was ill-prepared and could make significant contribution to the forum.

Meanwhile a former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Professional Administration, (GIMPA), Prof. Stephen Addai, said Ghana must abide by signed treaties regarding international electoral processes.

Prof. Addai believes that the results from every polling station should be “projected unto a public screen and not only on the internet.”

“I remember in 1969 that was done. And that was almost 45 years ago,” he said.

According to him, the system which is practiced in other African countries should be implemented as it might improve the transparency of the polls.

“As soon as the results are counted they must be projected unto a public screen.

“If it is not done, “then there is a deliberate connivance to rig the elections.”