'A lawyer asked me if the NDC will ever win a court case under NPP' - Amaliba

Abraham Amaliba, legal team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has disclosed that a colleague lawyer asked him if the NDC will ever win a court case under the NPP government.

His comments follow the decision by the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), to sue the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana again for taking the new voters’ registration to Senior High Schools (SHS).

According to the NDC, the schools were not part of the designated centres the EC gazetted for the registration exercise hence the suit.

Mr Amaliba explained that his party’s train of lawsuits at the courts is to set a precedent when power changes hands in the future.

“If the court admits what we are saying fine, if not, what we are doing is to lay down precedence and so if NDC comes to power and decides to do registration at border towns, saying we know Ghanaians are at Togo and so we want to bring registration near them, no one can complain,” he said.

He added that "We want to lay a foundation and to ensure that these things are laid as precedence to guide our electoral processes, but if the court says what they did is ok, then when we come into power and we do a similar thing and we are taken to court, it will be there that Jean Mensah sent registration to senior high school campuses whiles they were not gazetted.”

Speaking on the issue with Nana Owusu Nkrumah on Atinka TV’s Flagship Morning Show, Ghana Nie, the Director, Legal Affairs, NDC, Lawyer Abraham Amaliba, explained that looking at the CI 126, the regulation 2, indicates that if EC is going to do any registration, it has to do gazetting of all registration centres and publish it for everyone to see.

However, he said although the EC did that, the SHS campuses were not gazetted as registration centres, therefore making the registration at the school campuses illegal.

“The law stated that they should gazette all the centres and because they did not gazette the SHS as centres, it becomes illegality.”

He further stated that, "If tomorrow someone becomes an EC Chair, he or she can say I want to do the registration in my bedroom, or at Ghana borders, so we have to ensure that we are working with the law.”

Lawyer Amaliba also said, “We are saying the court should stop the EC from conducting the registration at the SHS campuses, even if they are doing it there, those names should be taken from it and the court should place an injunction on them.”

He admitted that he did not know if the EC was served on Friday, adding that if the EC was served, and it went ahead to compile the register at the schools, then they can be charged for contempt, but if they were not served they will continue from there.

“If we do a search and realize they were served on Friday but went ahead to do the registration they will be charged for contempt of court,” he said.

IPAC

Meanwhile, Lawyer Amaliba said although there was an Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting, which had NDC representatives, they did not accept their suggestion, adding that, even if they met, it does not make an illegality legal.

“If something is illegal, no two people can sit somewhere and say we have done what we have done and so the illegality can be killed, no. The Supreme Court said the EC can go-ahead to do the registration, but it did not say that through the registration the EC should disobey our laws. The Supreme Court said the EC can go ahead and do the registration in accordance with the law and not breach or do away with all our laws,” he said.

He noted that they will visit the case on 20th July 2020.