SALL residents should have voted in Buem Constituency – Deputy AG

Deputy Attorney-General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has told the Supreme Court that residents of the Santrokofi Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi, (SALL) should have been allowed to exercise their franchise in the 2020 parliamentary election on December 7, 2020.

Although he advanced that argument, he believes that the people of the SALL region should have been allowed to vote in the Buem Constituency in the Oti Region and not the Hohoe Constituency in the Volta Region.

Godfred Dame said this when he was moving an application urging the Supreme Court to throw out an injunction by the Ho High Court on the gazetting of Mr John Peter Amewu as the Member of Parliament (MP)-elect for Hohoe.

The deputy A-G argued that the Electoral Commission erred by not allowing the people of SALL to vote in the parliamentary election.

He stated that a new constitutional instrument CI 128 which came into force on August 11, 2020 placed SALL under the Buem constituency.

“If anything, the election in Buem should rather be annulled for the people of SALL to vote and not the Hohoe Constituency,” he argued.

Tsikata’s argument

In response, lawyer for five individuals who got the injunction, Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, argued that the admission by the A-G meant that the people of SALL were indeed denied the right to vote and also the right to be represented in parliament.

He submitted that CI 128 which placed SALL in the Buem constituency was unconstitutional because it was not gazetted on the day it was laid before parliament as required by the 1992 constitution.

Background

Residents of SALL were not allowed to take part in the December 7, 2020, parliamentary election but only voted in the Presidential election.

SALL which used to be part of the Volta Region was carved out and became part of the new formed Oti Region.