NDC re-files lawsuit against EC’s one-day voter registration exercise

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has re-filed its case against the Electoral Commission on the reopening of the voters’ register for new registrations.

A High Court in Accra on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, dismissed the NDC’s and advise that the party should have filed the suit on notice so that the EC could have been served.

Lawyer of the NDC, Justin Pwavra Teriwajah, in an interview on Eyewitness News said the party has made the necessary amendments and refiled the case.

He explained the circumstances under which the court dismissed the party’s earlier case in the interview.

He said: “When you are to apply for an injunction, there are two ways to go about it –the interim injunction, that is for cases that are urgent, but when you have time, you can go for the interlocutory injunction. So we were supposed to give them [EC] three working days notice before we move the interlocutory injunction. We filed the case on 24th but it came out on 25th September.”

“If you are going to file and give them [EC] three working days notice before you can move the motion, then you are going to move it on Friday. Then they would have already done the registration. So we were compelled to move the interim injunction for the court to stop them so that, we can go ahead and apply for the interlocutory injunction.”

The lawyer said when they went to court on Wednesday, “the judge said we should have gone by the interlocutory injunction in the first instance so we went out of court and quickly went to prepare the interlocutory injunction and filed it”.

Eligible voters who could not participate in the mass registration exercise organized earlier this year due to the closure of the borders have been given a one day window to have their names captured in the electoral roll on Thursday, October 1, 2020.

The NDC insisted that the EC acted beyond its powers in its attempt to reopen the voters’ register for those who could not register in the first exercise to do so.

The party said it decided to go to court because the Commission had not published in the gazette the 21 days’ notice of the planned exercise in accordance with the law governing elections in Ghana.

NDC is among other things seeking from the court “A declaration that the Electoral Commission has acted ultra vires in its attempt to reopen and/or conduct registration of voters scheduled for Thursday 1st October 2020 when the Electoral Commission has not caused to be published in the Gazette, twenty-one (21) days’ notice of this voters registration to the political parties and the general public;” the NDC averred in its statement of claim.”

EC to proceed with one-day registration exercise despite NDC’s lawsuit

Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission (EC) is bent on organising the one-day voter registration exercise tomorrow, Thursday, October 1, 2020, despite NDC’s lawsuit.

A statement from the EC stated that: “As previously advertised, the Electoral Commission will undertake a one day voters’ registration exercise tomorrow Thursday, the 1st of October 2020 in all its district offices across the country.”