Full Supreme Court judgement on voters register case

The Supreme Court has released a 29-paged judgment detailing the reasons behind its decision to dismiss a suit challenging the compilation of the new voter’s register.

A seven-member panel of the apex court on June 25, 2020 affirmed the ECs move not to accept the old voter’s cards and birth certificates as a proof of eligibility of an applicant for the compilation of the new voters’ register, which has since commenced.

The apex court judges in their short ruling said the full judgment and the reasons of the court would be ready on July 15, 2020.

Non-inclusion of old voters ID Crad

“The 1st and 2nd plaintiffs have therefore have therefore failed to satisfied this court that the non-inclusion of the current voter identification card as a document for the identification of a person who applies for registration is, in all the circumstances of this case, unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious. We therefore hold that the non-inclusion by C1.126 of the current voter identification cards as basic document for the identification of a person who applies for registration as a voter is not inconsistent with article 296 of the Constitution or any other Law,” the panel said of the issues concerning the non-inclusion of the exiting voters identification cards.

Birth certificates

It said ” it is a little wonder that a birth certificate has never been included as one of the documents to be used as evidence of identification by a person who applies to be registered as a voter. We have quoted the relevant provisions of CI72and CI91 this judgment. None of these specify a birth certificate as an identification document. its introduction would be a retrograde step.

We therefore, hold that non-inclusion of birth certificate as a document for the identification of a person who applies for registration as a voter by CI 126 is not inconsistent with or in contravention of the Constitution, or any other law.

Find below the full judgment of the Apex court: