Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Friday, October 28, 2016
Moves to have credible, free and fair elections on December 7
received a major boost yesterday when the Supreme Court directed the Electoral
Commission (EC) to supply all contesting political parties and candidates with
Constituency Collation Sheets after the polls.
The court ordered that the parties should be given copies of both the
presidential and the parliamentary Collation Sheets - which hitherto were never
given to the parties - and that the documents should be duly signed by the
Returning Officers and the party agents.
The court also ordered that pink sheets at the polling stations
should be signed and copies given to the agents.
Original C.I.
94
The EC had prepared the Public Elections Regulations 2016, C.I. 94
such that the commission was mandated to give only the Parliamentary Collation
Sheets to the parties but not the Presidential, the most contentious. But the Supreme
Court held that the presidential tally sheets should also be given out.
Until the landmark ruling yesterday, there was no provision in the
C.I. 94 requiring the Returning Officer to sign the important Collation Sheets
- both presidential and parliamentary - and there were no provisions for agents
of the candidates or parties to sign the documents.
Plaintiff’s
Concerns
According to the plaintiff, Kwesi Nyame-Tease Eshun, a lawyer and
former Director of Research in Parliament, because the law did not provide for
the signatures of the Returning Officers at the Constituency Collation Centres
and the candidates of the parties, any form could subsequently be changed and
the commission’s officials could fill in what they like and send to Charlotte
Osei, the EC boss for declaration.
The Supreme Court held that the signatures of the Presiding Officers
and the agents are to authenticate those Collation Sheets.
The plaintiff had filed the suit against the EC and the Attorney
General, pointing out the confusion, discrepancies and anomalies in the C.I. 94
and sought an order from the court to be corrected.
Panel’s
Directive
As a result, the seven-member panel of judges, presided over by
Justice William Atuguba, after hearing the arguments, ordered the EC, the AG
and lawyers for the plaintiff to sit together and straighten the anomalies and
present the final draft within two hours for adoption by the court.
The EC had insisted that it was only the courts that could do the
corrections and the court gave the orders for the parties to meet and work out
the corrections and report back to the court for a definite ruling for it to
become the basis for the conduct of the 2016 general election.
The net effect of the court’s order is that if the parties have
copies of both the Collation Sheets and the Polling Station (pink sheets)
results, they could easily check what is recorded for each polling station on
the Collation Sheet and therefore, what is transferred to the EC headquarters
for the presidential election is accurate.
Defective C.I.
94
The plaintiff listed all the textual and inaccurate references in the C.I. 94 and during the proceedings
yesterday, Justice Atuguba said, “They are just drafting slips that could
easily be corrected” before ordering the parties involved to make the
corrections for the court to endorse it.
After about two hours of deliberations involving the EC, AG and the
plaintiff’s lawyers led by Akoto Ampaw, the parties returned to the court with
a well-prepared document to the satisfaction of the parties and for the
adoption of the court.
In fact, Thaddeus Sory, counsel for the EC, told the court that he
e-mailed the EC boss, Charlotte Osei, with the agreed corrected document for
her approval.
Corrected
Version
The court has ordered that Regulation 3 (1) (k) of C.I. 94 should
refer to Form One EL 1 A at Page 36 of the constitutional instrument headed,
“Part II Certificate to be endorsed on writ” for parliamentary election and not
a reference to the Parliamentary Election Collation Form (Form One EL 23 A) on
Page 37 of C.I. 94.
Also Regulation 3 (1) (m) refers to Part II Certificate to be
endorsed on the writ (Form One EL 1B) to be found at Page 39 of C.I. 94 headed
“Part II Certificate to be endorsed on writ” and not a reference to Form One EL
23B.
They also adopted that the reference to the declaration of results
form provided for in Regulation 42 (1) (d) which does not refer to any form in
the schedule shall be understood to be a reference to Form One EL 1A for the
parliamentary election and for the presidential, the declaration of the result
form shall be understood to refer to Form One EL 1B.
“Provision shall be made on the Parliamentary Elections-Result
Collation Form (Form One EL 23A) and on the Presidential Elections-Result
Collation Form (Form One EL 23B) for the names and signatures of the Returning Officer
at the constituency collation centre, the candidates or their representatives
or counting agents.”
The court further held that “the Returning Officer, the candidate or
their representative or the counting agents shall sign Form One EL 23A (for
parliamentary) and Form One EL 23B (for presidential).
The court indicated, “The Returning Officer shall give each
candidate or their representative or the counting agent a completed and signed
copy of Form One EL 23A (for parliamentary) and Form One EL 23B (for
presidential),” adding, “the Returning Officer at the collation centre shall
apply the same procedure set out in Regulation 42 (1) for collating the polling
stations results for the presidential election.”
The court adopted that “Regulation 42 (1) (e) requiring the returning
officer to name the person elected shall not apply to the presidential election.”
Finally, “the ‘Constituency Collation Sheet’ in Regulation 49 (1)
shall be understood to mean Parliamentary Elections-Result Collation Form (Form
One EL 23A) and Presidential Elections-Result Collation Form (Form One EL 23B),”
according to the court’s order.
The Teams
Other justices on the panel were: Julius Ansah, Sophia Adinyira,
Jones Victor Dotse, Kwasi Anin Yeboah, Paul Baffoe Bonnie and A.A. Benin.
Akoto Ampaw, Alex Quainoo and Kwaku Asirifi represented the
plaintiff, while Samuel Tettey, Director of Electoral Services was in
attendance with Mr. Sory for the EC.
Zainab Ayariga, Assistant State Attorney, represented the AG.
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