Jean Mensa: Petition to remove Ghana’s EC Boss submitted to presidency

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A petition has been submitted to the office of Ghana’s president to remove the current Chairperson of the country’s Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa.

A pressure group #FixTheCountry, which is leading the charge presented the 24-page document to the Jubilee House, the seat of government. The petition also seeks the removal of two other deputies – Dr. Bossman Asare and Samuel Tettey.

In a statement signed by the lead petitioner, Oliver Barker-Vormawor and issued on Monday, the group said its call is over the disenfranchisement of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) residents in the 2020 Parliamentary elections.

To this effect, it has presented the petition with 19 appendixes to the President.

A total of 46 individuals comprising “lawyers, academics, students, public and private sector employees, unemployed and homeless Ghanaians, and cuts across all political persuasions and ethnicity” form the crop of the petitioners, the statement said.

The petition is “invoking the constitutional process for the removal of the Chair and Deputies of the Electoral Commission”.

The petitioners explained that “the petition has been brought in connection with the intentional denial of the right to vote of the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe in the 2020 general parliamentary elections.  

They added, “the actions of the impugned officials, if considered in context and in light of their preceding and subsequent conduct, meets the threshold of stated misbehaviour and, or incompetence as required under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution for the removal of these officials”.

Presenting their concerns, they further said that they have “chosen to place their trust in a 1992 Constitution they believe to still be alive”.

According to them, “they have faith that the normal constitutional process contemplated by the Constitutions to avenge infractions against it and our democracy will be upheld without fear nor favour and that their standing as mere citizens of this Republic does not disable them from obtaining justice, in preserve of our Constitution”.

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During the 2020 general election, residents of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) could not vote in the Parliamentary elections due to an administrative demarcation by the Electoral Commission.

Subsequently, the decision by the EC inadvertently disenfranchised the indigenes from casting their ballots in the parliamentary polls.

Following this development, scores of individuals, including some human rights activists and political commentators, took to social media to criticise the Commission for preventing the residents from exercising their democratic rights.

A year after the elections, the FixTheCountry Movement is demanding that President Akufo-Addo dismisses the EC Chair and her deputies for failing to protect the democratic rights of the affected individuals.

It, therefore, wants the President to “act with necessary dispatch and have the necessary democratic integrity to not frustrate the efforts to protect our Constitution and constitutional rights”.

In line with conventional practice, having received the petition, the President will be expected to forward the petition to the Chief Justice for an appropriate determination.

In so doing, the Chief Justice will have to determine whether a prima facie case has been established in accordance with the law.

Where a determination is made, the Chief Justice will then proceed to constitute a Committee to establish the petition’s merits in question.

The Committee shall comprise three judges and two other individuals appointed by the Chief Justice.

Meanwhile, the petitioners have indicated that they cannot disclose the full contents of their petition due to previous rulings by the Supreme Court, which bars them from revealing same.

However, the petitioners have described the decision of the Supreme Court as “bizarre”.

SOURCE:DAILY MAIL GH: Myjoyonline.com contributed to this story