Supreme Court orders EC to give copies of collation forms to parties

The Supreme Court has ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to create a portion on the collation forms for all party agents including returning officers to append their signatures after results are collated.

The seven-member panel also asked the EC to make available to the candidates and their representatives copies of signed collated results forms for both parliamentary and presidential elections at the various collation centres.

The orders followed a suit by Mr Kwesi Nyame-Tsease Eshun a private legal practitioner, against the EC and the Attorney-General (AG) to expose flaws in the new law that governs the 2016 general elections.

The Supreme Court also directed the EC to go and confer with lawyers for the plaintiff to rectify the anomaly identified in the CI 94.

The plaintiff, Mr. Eshun, was seeking the true and proper interpretation of articles 42, 43, 45 (C) and 51 of the 1992 Constitution, especially Article 45 (C) which mandates the Commission to conduct and supervise all public elections and referenda, implying that a duty had been bestowed on the EC to conduct such elections in a free, fair, transparent and credible manner.

The plaintiff is asking the Supreme Court to declare that the failure of the EC to make clear provisions in C.l. 94, prescribing the detailed steps that the returning officer at the Constituency Collation Centre shall methodically collate the total valid votes cast for each of the contesting presidential candidates, and to enter same in the relevant forms, namely, the Certificate to be endorsed on the Writ, Form One E.L. 1 B and Presidential Elections-Result Collation Form

Source: GNA