New Regions Lands in Supreme Court

A group calling itself the Strategic Thinkers Network-Africa, has dragged the Electoral Commission (EC) before the Supreme Court over creation of the six additional regions in Ghana.

The plaintiff wants the apex court to grant an injunction restraining the Commission from organizing the referendum process in beneficiary communities until the determination of the matter.

Aside the EC headed by Ms Jean Mensah, the group has also sued the Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo.

Ghana is set for its second referendum since 1992 which could add six more administrative regions to the existing ten.

The new regions are to be known as Oti, Ahafo, Brong East, Western North, North East and Savanna.

The referendum, expected in December this year, is a recommendation of the 19-member Justice Alan Brobbey Commission of Enquiry set up in November to hear petitions in areas demanding a re-demarcation of the regions.

The EC at its recent Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting approved a road-map for organizing the referendum.

But the Strategic Thinkers Network wants the Supreme Court to declare as null and void the Electoral Commission’s plan to limit the referendum to only registered voters in the yet to be created regions.

The group also wants a declaration that the impending limited voter registration exercise in the beneficiary areas “is arbitrary, whimsical and capricious, and violates Articles 45(a) and 296 of the 1992 Constitution and therefore unconstitutional.”

They also want an order directing the Electoral Commission “not to conduct the referendum limited to only the places so recommended.”

“An interlocutory injunction order directed at the EC from going ahead with the limited registration exercise in only the proposed new regions until the determination of this matter,” the group added in its writ.

By: Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson