Legal representatives of the Electoral Commission (EC) today, Thursday July 6, 2017, has failed to furnish the Human Rights court presided over by Justice Anthony Yeboah with details of the steps the EC has taken so far to implement the Representation of the People’s Amendment Act (ROPAA).
At the last court sitting, lawyers for both the EC and the Attorney General (AG) indicated to the court that the country’s election management body has some vital details of steps it has taken and are being undertaken to execute the 12-year old law.
However, in court today, Grace Ewool representing the AG and Baffour Gyewu, representing the EC and holding Thaddeus Sory’s brief, submitted to the court that they no longer have any useful evidence nor documents to present to the court in support of their case.
Lead counsel for the Applicants, Samson Ayenini, expressed great surprise in court, describing the actions of the defendants as acts carried out in bad faith.
He underscored that the defendants in the case have only sort to delay the wheels of justice by their actions and in actions.
The presiding Judge obviously surprised by the announcement in court by the defendants referred them to their two pieces of evidence of alleged ongoing work.
The Judge asked when one of those was authored as it is was undated. The defendants replied that it predates the other which is dated as September 2011.
Lawyer for the applicants point out to the judge that the two documents only express intention and nothing more and that the clear and obvious indication is that EC has simply been sleeping on the job since it authored those two supposed roadmap for the implementation of ROPAA.
The court in spite of the drama by the defendants ordered the parties to file their issues for adoption and subsequently file their written legal arguments by 30th of July 2017.
Hopefully the court will deliver its Judgment at the start of the 2017/2018 legal year.
