The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has abandoned its legal case seeking to stop the Electoral Commission (EC) from going ahead with the voter registration exercise.
The NDC’s suit at the Supreme Court is based on two premises – first, that the attempt by the EC to compile a new registration exercise was unconstitutional and second that the decision of the EC to exclude an existing voter ID as a form of identification for the exercise was also unconstitutional.
However, at Thursday morning’s hearing, lawyer for the NDC, Mr Godwin Tamakloe, abandoned the first leg which had to do with the constitutionality of the EC’s decision to conduct that exercise.
That was after the court told counsel that per the rules of court, a party cannot be seeking a relief and also asked to be granted another relief in the alternative.
Counsel took a cue from the bench and abandoned the relief that had to do with the EC’s decision to conduct the registration exercise.
Suit
The NDC in March, this year, invoked the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution with a case that it was unconstitutional for the EC to reject an existing voters ID as a prerequisite for the upcoming voter registration exercise.
It is the contention of the NDC that it is unconstitutional for the EC to reject an existing voter ID as it will disenfranchise many Ghanaians which is a violation of Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution.
The NDC further argues that per Article 45 of the 1992 Constitution the EC can only compile a voter registration once and periodically revise it.
