Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings
AN APPLICATION by the flagbearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, to challenge her disqualification by the Electoral Commission (EC) from the December 7 presidential election has been dismissed.
A Human Rights Court presided over by Justice Kofi Essel Mensah dismissed the application after observing that the EC?s rejection of the nomination forms was due to the NDP?S own tardiness.
According to the judge, the EC extensively published on radio and in print regarding the conduct of the election and indicated October 17 and 18 as the days on which the nomination forms would be accepted, with a clear indication that there would be no extension of the deadline.
The applicants, the judge said, had an option to bring the forms before or on the specified days.
However, because the applicants did not meet the requirements and there was little time for them to complete the forms, their flagbearer was knocked out of the presidential race.
To the judge, the applicants failed to put up favourable case against the EC to demonstrate that their fundamental human rights had been violated.
The issues before the court for determination were whether the EC was wrong in setting aside two days to receive nomination, whether it erred in rejecting the application forms mandated, and also whether the EC was mandated to endorse the reasons for the rejection on the form.
The court was also to decide whether there was a need for an extended time and also if indeed the human rights of the applicants had been violated.
The judge rejected the claims by the applicants that the EC should had declared a day instead of two in receiving forms, noting that under the law, the EC was mandated to declare two days for submission.
The judge disclosed that after studying the document which was to be presented to the EC, he found out that there were too many unfilled forms and by this, the applicants could not provide the vital information needed for registering.
?There were a lot of blank spaces especially from the Northern and Upper East. There were no signatories from those who subscribed,? he said.
As a result of that, the forms could not pass the validity test under the law.
The judge noted that the nomination forms were returned to those who submitted them by the EC officials to do the necessary correction. However, as it turned out that they could not do the correction before the deadline, the EC rejected same.
On the argument raised by counsel that the EC could have given the applicants some days, as it did for a presidential candidate to fill the forms accurately, the judge observed that counsel failed to provide any statute to support that.
According to him, what counsel sought to do was to persuade him with an old adage that ?what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander,? and this, he indicated, was not applicable to the situation on the ground and as a result they could not be given that remedy to correct the anomaly before submitting the forms.
The EC?s hands, the judge said, were tied under the current law CI 75, so it could not use that discretionary power. He subsequently implored that ?we should not lead EC into temptation but deliver it from sin?.
The judge, who was of the view that the EC could not bear the cross of the applicants for their own inaction, stated that although the circumstance Konadu found herself invoked his sympathy, he could do nothing to assist her.
The judge dismissed the application but indicated that he would not award cost against the applicants because the matter was to help strengthen democracy.
It would be recalled that on October 18, 2012, the EC rejected the nomination forms of Mrs. Rawlings on grounds that it was incomplete and had some errors.
Mrs. Rawlings, dissatisfied with this decision, through her lawyers, filed an application for a judicial review seeking certain reliefs to enforce her human right on grounds that the EC acted arbitrarily to the constitution by that disqualification.
By Mary Anane
