Thursday, April 9, 2009 (Page 3 Lead)
THE Supreme Court yesterday quashed the ruling of the Sunyani High Court which upheld a petition that sought to restrain the declaration of the winner of the Asutifi South parliamentary election held on December 7, 2008.
In a unanimous decision, the court prohibited the trial judge from further hearing the matter on the grounds that he had assumed a wrongful jurisdiction when he proceeded to hear the case.
The effect of the ruling is that the Electoral Commission (EC) can now go ahead and declare the winner of the election, after which any aggrieved party can go ahead and petition the High Court within 21 days after the declaration of the winner.
The Sunyani High Court had, on January 6, 2009, ruled that an application for injunction filed by the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) parliamentary candidate for Asutifi South in the election, Mr Yiadom Boakye-Boateng, seeking to restrain the EC from declaring the winner of the Asutifi South election had been properly laid before it.
Mr Collins Dauda, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate, and the EC had filed a motion praying the High Court to dismiss the petition, since it had not been properly laid before it on the grounds that it should have been filed 21 days after and not before the declaration of the winner of the election.
Following the court’s decision to dismiss Mr Dauda’s opposition to the petition, he filed an application for an order of certiorari praying the Supreme Court to quash the decision of the High Court to hear the petition which sought to restrain the EC from embarking on its constitutional mandate.
Ruling on the matter at its sitting in Accra yesterday, the Supreme Court, presided over by Mr Justice William Atuguba, held that it was premature for the trial judge to hear the petition which had been filed before the declaration of a winner of the election.
Other members of the panel were Ms Justice Sophia Akuffo, Professor Justice S. K. Date-Bah, Mrs Justice Rose Owusu and Mr Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie.
The court upheld submissions from counsel for Mr Dauda, who is the Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, and awarded costs of GH¢1,000 against Mr Boakye-Boateng.
Mr Dauda, who wore a white African wear, described the court’s ruling as victory for democracy in the country.
He said he was particularly happy the people of Asutifi would soon be represented in Parliament, which started sitting in January.
Counsel for Mr Dauda had argued that Section 18 (1) of the law states that “an election petition shall be presented within twenty-one days after the date of the publication in the Gazette of the result of the election to which it relates, except that a petition questioning an election on an allegation of corrupt practices and specifically alleging a payment of money or to have been made by the person whose election is questioned or to have been made on his behalf to his knowledge, may be presented within twenty-one days after the date of the alleged payment”.
According to Mr Samuel Cudjoe, the ruling by the High Court was improper and ought to be quashed by the highest court of the land because Mr Boakye-Boateng should have waited for the election results to be published in the Gazette before commencing the action at the court, as contained in Section 18 (1) of PNDC Law 284.
The applicant had further stated that the High Court judge erred and exceeded his jurisdiction when, on his own, he amended Section 18 (2) of PNDC Law 284 by ruling that the payment of a deposit was not necessary for a petition to be heard.
Section 18 (2) of PNDC Law 284 states that “the presentation of an election petition under subsection (1) shall not be valid unless, within the time specified in subsection (1), the petitioner gives ¢20,000 as security for costs”.
On February 24, 2009, counsel for the respondent, Captain Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey (retd), had opposed Mr Dauda’s application and informed the court that the law allowed his client to be heard before the 21-day period, especially when there was an allegation of corrupt practice.
For his part, counsel for the EC, Mr James Quarshie-Idun, told the court that the position of the EC was that it should be allowed to complete its work before petitions were filed.
A Principal State Attorney, Ms Sylvia Edusu, who represented the Attorney-General on behalf of the EC, said the Attorney-General was not opposed to the application for an order of certiorari to quash the lower court’s ruling.
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