The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) risks being cited for contempt of court for presenting its filing fee to the Electoral Commission (EC), despite being the very entity to place an injunction on the process, a private legal practitioner, John Ndebugri has said.
Mr. Ndebugri explained on Eyewitness News that, “because there is an injunction already pending because of the application they have gone to tender, they might be cited for contempt because they are seeking to do exactly what they are praying the court to prevent the Electoral Commission from doing.”
The Attorney General or the EC could invoke the jurisdiction of the court to punish the PPP for contempt, he added.
The PPP filed a suit at the High Court on September 19, seeking an interlocutory injunction to prevent the Commission from receiving the nominations in protest of the EC’s much criticized hike in the filing fees for presidential and parliamentary aspirants.
On Thursday, the EC said it would not be accepting filing fees from the presidential and parliamentary aspirants because of the injunction. But it collected that of the PPP, when the party’s Chairman, Brew Hammond, presented it together with the party’s nomination forms. Later, he asked for it to be returned to them, but the Commission turned down that request.
Addressing the media later on Friday, the EC Chair, Charlotte Osei, remarked that she accepted the filing fee because she assumed that the PPP had withdrawn the suit from court, hence their decision to present the filing fee. Mr. Ndebugri echoed that sentiment when he said, “for they themselves [the PPP] to go and tender that one [the filing fee], it would appear as if they had abandoned their application.”
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