ROPAA: Injury case against EC leaders dismissed

General News of Thursday, July 11, 2019

Source: starrfm.com.gh

2019-07-11

The High Court rejected a request for contempt of court against the Electoral Commission and its commissioners for non-compliance with a previous judicial decision to enforce the Law on the Amendment of the Law on the Representation of Persons (ROPAA).

The applicants, who are Ghanaians living abroad through their lawyers, asked the court to order the commissioners for contempt of court for disobeying the court decisions.

The Commissioners were sued for contempt of court for failing to implement the High Court's rulings under which terms and conditions would be put in place to operationalize the ROPAA within 12 months.

The claimants in the case are five Ghanaians living in the diaspora.

The claimants baderted that the EC had "failed, refused or neglected to respect and abide by" the court's specific orders despite the many letters they had written to remind the EC of the impending delay.

However, in its decision, the court reasoned its decision only to ask the parties to address the clerk of the court.

Prior to the decision of the Court, EC President Jean Mensa had filed an affidavit against the motion for the finding of contempt of Kofi A. Boateng, Ph.D., and four other persons, in which she had declared: "On December 18, 2017, the High Court, The Human Rights Division, chaired by His Excellency Anthony K. Yeboah, J (as he was then) rendered a judgment for the implementation of Law 699 by the Ghana Electoral Commission within 12 months from 1 January 2018 ".

The affidavit continued: "I say that at the time of the judgment, in 2017, I was not president of the electoral commission. I was then appointed in July 2018 to the presidency of the electoral commission and I was not immediately seized of the necessary court orders for the implementation of Law 699 when I was appointed ".

"I repeat that after receiving court orders after my appointment in July 2018 and ensuring that measures were taken to comply with court orders, I, through my lawyers, filed a request for an extension of time within a reasonable time. the operationalization of Law 699 would take place and, in that request, I explained the reasons for the Election Commission's inability to respect the deadlines set in the judgment of the above-mentioned court. Attachment # 1 attached is a copy of the application for extension of time filed January 30, 2019 ".

Ms. Jean Mensa denied that "in the performance of my official duties as President of the Ghana Electoral Commission, I acted deliberately in order to discredit or disregard her. administration of justice. Subject to what has been admitted above, I deny each of the allegations of fact contained in the Applicant's affidavit in support of this application as if they were identical to those set out in extensor and denied in series ".