The Supreme Court will on Thursday, March 14, 2013, hear an application for directions on issues to be set out for trial in a petition challenging the legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama.
The issues include whether or not persons were allowed to
vote without undergoing prior biometric verification and whether or not votes
cast exceeded ballot papers issued to voters at polling stations during the
polls in some polling stations.
The petitioners are also pleading with the Supreme Court to
allow them and the respondents to make audiovisual presentations for an
expeditious trial.
They are again praying the court to permit parties in the
case to exchange documents and evidence to be relied on, seven days before
hearing of the substantive case begins.
Another request being made by the petitioners is that the
court should direct each party to present a list of witnesses; a brief summary
of the relevant nature of each witness’s testimony to enable the court to
determine the “probative value” of evidence or testimony witnesses intend to
lead in court.
The Registrar of the Supreme Court fixed the date after
lawyers for the petitioners filed application for directions at the Supreme
Court registry yesterday.
The Petitioners
The petitioners, Nana Akufo-Addo, his running mate, Dr
Mahamadu Bawumia, and the Chairman of the NPP, Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, filed
the petition at the highest court of the land praying the court to annul votes
cast in 11,916 polling stations due to what they termed “gross and widespread
irregularities”.
They had in a December 28, 2012 petition called for the
annulment of votes cast in 4,709 polling stations but amended their petition on
February 9, 2013 after the court had granted them permission to do so, and
cited 11,916 polling stations as the total number of polling stations where
alleged irregularities were recorded.
The three had initially called for the cancellation of
1,342,845 valid votes cast during the election at 4,709 polling stations due to
the alleged irregularities recorded during the elections, but are now urging
the Supreme Court to pronounce additional 3,327,659 valid votes cast as
invalid.
The Supreme Court on February 7, 2013 granted the
petitioners’ prayer of amendment, and accordingly allowed the amendment.
Respondents
President Mahama, who is the first respondent, the Electoral
Commission (EC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the second and
third respondents respectively, have filed their responses.
They have all refuted the petitioners’ allegations on the
grounds that President Mahama won the elections legitimately in the full glare
of the media and local and international election observers.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) applied to join the
petition on December 31, 2012 and was duly granted permission by a 6-3 majority
decision of the Supreme Court on January 22, 2013.
Issues for trial
The issues the petitioners are praying the court to set out
for trial include whether or not voting took place without prior biometric
verification at many polling stations across the country; ballots that were
cast without prior biometric verification were taken into account by the EC in
the declaration of results; different results were recorded in the statement of
poll and results at polling stations bearing the same codes were declared for
the office of President.
Other issues are whether or not there were 28 locations
where voting took place and which according to the petitioners were not part of
the officially sanctioned 26,002 polling stations; aggregate instances of
statutory and regulatory violations of widespread instances of malpractices or
irregularities affected the results of the presidential polls of December 7 and
8, 2012; votes recorded or results on declaration forms as a result of the said
statutory violations/malpractices/irregularities should be annulled.
The rest are whether or not instances where the total number
of votes cast exceeded the total number of registered voters at cited polling stations
and whether or not votes cast exceeded
ballot papers issued to voters at polling stations during the polls.
More joinders
Meanwhile, more than 50 persons have filed nine different
applications to join the petition. The applicants are bringing the applications
in their capacity as citizens who cast their ballots during the December 7 and
8, 2012 polls.
The applicants are from polling stations, constituencies and
regions where alleged irregularities have been cited by the petitioners.
The applications were filed on their behalf by Urafiki Law
Consult, a law firm in Tema.
According to the applicants, their attention had been drawn
to the petitioners’ prayer for votes to be annulled in 11,916 polling stations,
and since they were citizens who cast their ballots and witnessed what happened
on voting day, they did not want their votes to be annulled.
They said they wanted to be heard by the court because it
was their right under Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution to vote.
According to the applicants, it would be unjust for their
votes to be annulled because they underwent biometric verification before
casting their ballots.
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