Re-collated results: High Court dismisses NDC’s preliminary objection

Re-collated results: High Court dismisses NDC’s preliminary objection

An Accra High Court has dismissed a preliminary objection by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) application seeking an order for the Electoral Commission (EC) to collate and declare the results of 4 constituencies under dispute.
The Court is now hearing the application on whether the EC should go ahead to collate and declare.

The constituencies are Okaikwei Central, Ablekuma North, Tema Central and Techiman South.

TV3’s Laud Adu Asare who was in court on Wednesday, January 01, 2025, reported that Justice Baah Forson Agyapong agreed that the application for judicial review is not an election petition hence the jurisdiction of the court has been properly invoked.

The Supreme Court had ordered the Accra High Court to reconsider the mandamus application of the National Democratic Congress regarding the constituencies whose results were under dispute.

In a 5-0 unanimous decision the Apex court on Friday, December 27, 2024, indicated that the presiding Judge hearing the case should have given the legal representation of the NDC a hearing on their application to be joined to the NPP’s mandamus application since they were an interested party that would’ve been affected by the ruling.

The NDC was challenging an earlier High Court ruling by another judge that directed the Electoral Commission (EC) to re-collate parliamentary election results in nine disputed constituencies.

Aggrieved parliamentary candidates from both the NDC and the NPP had filed a writ, seeking to compel the EC to hold fresh elections in these constituencies.

They cited anomalies in the collation of results and the subsequent declaration of winners.

Presiding Judge Joseph Adu Owusu Agyeman, in his ruling on Friday, December 20, ordered the EC to proceed with the re-collation of the results in the Ablekuma North constituency.

This ruling was made despite objections from NDC legal representatives, led by Godwin Edudzi Tameklo. Both lawyers argued that the results of the constituencies had already been declared, but the court determined that anomalies in the process warranted the re-collation.