Raymond Atuguba, counsel for PNC Presidential candidate has argued in court that the Electoral Commission was unreasonable in disqualifying his client, Dr. Edward Mahama from the 2016 presidential elections.
At the second day of hearing his suit, Dr. Raymond Atuguba said the EC violated his client’s fundamental human right to contest elections by disqualifying him on the basis of errors on his client’s presidential nomination forms.
Dr. Atuguba wondered why the EC was so fixated on errors which could easily have been corrected.
Reminding the EC of its own propensity to make mistakes, Dr. Atuguba said the EC’s lack of diligence was exposed in the 2013 presidential election petition heard at the Supreme Court.
The main opposition NPP went to court praying the highest court of the land to overturns the EC’s declaration of NDC candidate John Mahama as winner of the 2012 elections on the basis of infractions and irregularities found on results sheets.
“The EC in the 2012 election petition made terrible mistakes such as not signing pink sheets, the Supreme Court forgave them but they don’t want to forgive us,” he argued.
In a five-minute oral presentation, Dr. Atuguba said forgiveness in this case required the EC to call his client to rectify his ‘mistakes’.
Atuguba said the Public Elections Regulations (C. I94) places an obligation on the EC to provide the applicant an opportunity to correct mistakes if need be.
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