Five Ghanaians in the Diaspora have filed a contempt case against the Electoral Commission (EC), the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa, and the six other commissioners for failing to operationalise the Representation of the People Amendment Act (ROPAA), 2006 (Act 699) which gives Ghanaians in the Diaspora the right to vote from abroad.
The five — Dr Kofi Boateng, Agyenim Boateng, Nellie Kemevor, Obed Danquah and Christian Sillim — want the Accra High Court to commit the EC and its commissioners for contempt for not implementing an order from the High Court that ROPAA should be operationalised within 12 months.
The order was part of a judgement delivered by the High Court, presided over by Mr Justice Anthony Yeboah, on December 18, 2017, in which the EC was ordered to operationalise ROPAA by laying before Parliament a Constitutional Instrument (CI) that would set out the modalities for the implementation of the law.
In the event that the EC had any justifiable reason and was “unable to comply with the order”, the court ordered it to publish the justifiable reason(s) 30 days before the expiration of the deadline and also appear before the court to explain the reason(s).
Contempt application
In their application for contempt filed on their behalf by their lawyer, Mr Samson Lardy Ayenini, the five Ghanaians averred that the EC had “failed, refused or neglected to respect and comply” with the specific orders of the court.
That, they argued, was in spite of numerous letters that they wrote to remind the EC of the impending deadline.
“The first respondent (the EC) and its commissioners have, with impunity, continued their contemptuous acts of not complying with the said judgement and its specific orders directed at them personally, even though the time for complying has elapsed,” they averred.
According to the five applicants, the only way to ensure that the EC complied with the court’s orders was for Mrs Mensa and the other commissioners to be “committed to prison for contempt”.
“I am not guilty of contempt”
Mrs Mensa has, however, refuted claims by the five applicants that she and the EC had acted contemptuously.
In her affidavit in opposition, she contended that she was not the Chairperson of the EC at the time the court gave the order in December 2017 and that since her appointment, she had taken steps to implement the orders of the court.
“Having been seized with the orders of the court after my appointment in July 2018, and ensuring that steps are taken in complying with the orders of the court, I, through my lawyers, filed for an extension of time within which the operationalisation of Act 699 would take place.
“I deny that in the performance of my official duties as the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana I have acted wilfully with the view to bring the administration of justice into disrepute or disregard,” she averred.
Background
The five Ghanaians sued the electoral management body on the basis that it had “gone to sleep” and refused to implement Act 699, 11 years after it was passed.
The “deliberate refusal” or inaction of the EC to implement the act, they argued, had robbed them of the chance to vote in three general elections (2008, 2012 and 2016) and other public elections.
They also contended that it was discriminatory for the EC to continue to register a category of Ghanaian citizens studying abroad or working in Ghana’s missions/embassies abroad to vote in public elections and referenda without including them.
In the judgement, which upheld the case of the five Ghanaians, the court held that the EC was deliberately dragging its feet and had made its mind not to implement Act 699 any time soon.
It was the court’s view that the EC failed to give any cogent reasons for the delay, describing the delay as “grievous, unreasonable and unjustifiable’’.
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