Parliament can’t force EC to use guarantor system for voter registration – Former NPP MP

Yaw Baah, a former New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Kumawu, has said that the Parliament of Ghana cannot force the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) to amend its proposed Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) for the registration of voters.

According to him, parliament does not have the power to make the EC include its recommendation on the use of the guarantor system for the registration of voters, graphic.com.gh reports.

Yaw Baah, who is a lawyer, explained that Article 11(7) of the 1992 Constitution gives parliament the power to only annul subsidiary legislation, including C.I.s but the house's recommendations are not binding.

“If Parliament insists that its decision for the EC to include the guarantor system is binding, then the exercise it undertook on March 31 by voting to recommend to the EC to include the guarantor system is unconstitutional.

“The recommendation is an opinion by Parliament,” he is quoted to have said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

Yaw Baah, a former Chairman of the Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, added that recent rulings of the Supreme Court of Ghana have affirmed the rule of parliament on the enactment of C.I.s.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that if parliament does not take advantage of the annulment power under Article 11(7) of the 1992 Constitution, it cannot do any other thing that is binding on the body that presented the subsidiary legislation.

“The Supreme Court was emphatic that when it comes to subsidiary legislation, Parliament is only a conduit through which constitutional bodies vested with power can bring a subsidiary legislation into force,” he said.

Background

Parliament unanimously rejected the draft Bill of new Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2023.

The controversial C.I. from the EC seeks to make the Ghana Card the only identification document to be used for voter registration.

The 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, in presenting the report of the committee of the whole on behalf of the speaker said the house should “officially communicate to the EC of this decision for favourable consideration before finalization and presentation to parliament for passage into law.

“The special budget in its report recommended to parliament to hold a meeting with the EC and NIA in other to advance on the new CI and for the two institutions to give assurance to the house with the concerns addressed during the briefing.”

“...after deliberations and the responses by the Electoral Commission, the committee chaired by you came to this conclusion, the committee accordingly summit to the house it's draft Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2023 and related matters for consideration and adoption.

“The committee further urges the House to officially communicate to the EC of this decision for favourable consideration before finalization and presentation to parliament for passage into law,” he added.

The EC is, however, insisting on using the Ghana Card alone as the only document for voter registration under the C.I.

Dr Serebour Quaicoe, the Director of Electoral Services at EC, explained that parliament had not rejected the C.I. but had only made proposals that were not binding on the Electoral Management Board.

“Although both sides of Parliament expressed reservations with the C.I. before going on recess, processes for laying the document have not been totally gone through for the bill to be laid, and claims parliament has rejected the C.I. are untenable,” he noted.

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