'Let Supreme Court rule that our petition is incompetent and insignificant' - Edudzi Tamakloe to EC, Akufo-Addo

A spokesperson for the opposition NDC’s 2020 presidential election petition legal team, lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe has rubbished the argument from the camps of the Electoral Commission (EC) and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that the petition of ex-President Mahama is incompetent and insignificant.

In the responses of the lawyers of the Electoral Commission (EC) and President Akufo-Addo, they argued that the petition is incompetent, lacks merit and raises no reasonable cause of action.

It is in their contention that the petition of the NDC does not even meet the requirement of a Presidential Election Petition as stipulated in article 64 (1) of the 1992 Constitution.

But reacting to statements of both the 1st and 2nd respondents, lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe said on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show that the lawyers of both the Electoral Commission (EC) and President Akufo-Addo have resorted to admission and avoidance tricks which is a common weapon of lawyers to admit wrongdoing but try to avoid punishment.

“What the lawyers have stated is one of the tricks that lawyers deploy; we call it admission and avoidance and that is why they are admitting to the mistakes but saying that it is insignificant and incompetent,” he indicated.

He noted that the answers of the respondents to the petition of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) admitted in several of their paragraphs that the NDC is telling the truth.

He stressed that the Electoral Commission further admitted to wrongdoing in failing to answer to the petition of the NDC that after declaring the results, it received new figures in Greater Accra but chose to term the new figures as insignificant to election results.

He added that insignificance of the new figures can only be determined by the Supreme Court and not the Electoral Commission (EC) and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) as they have stated in their plea to the Apex Court of the land.

"NDC has sent a petition to the Supreme Court and you have filed your answer to the petition and entered an appearance. In several of your paragraphs, you have admitted that what the NDC is saying is true but you are saying it is insignificant."

“The EC went further in the admission of wrongdoing stated that after declaring the results, it received new figures in Greater Accra but they are still insignificant; let the court decide it. Let the court tell us that after the EC is done with the declaration, the next day it can take more figures and add it to the results and it is insignificant, then we will know how we will play the game,” he said.

“At this point, we don’t have the power to go into the substantive case before the Supreme Court; let’s wait and see what will happen. We can read Article 63(3) and Article 64 of the 1992 Constitution. Let the Supreme Court judges come and tell us that the petition is incompetent and then we will know that the Court has decided, but what our adversary will say in its pleading is up to them,” he stated.