The Policy Advisor of the Progressive Peoples Party, Mr Kofi Asamoah Siaw says the party was not disappointed with the refusal of the Accra High Court to stop the Electoral Commission (EC) from going ahead to collect filing fees from Political Parties.
According to him, the dismissal of the interlocutory injunction was only “part one of the suit” it filed against the EC.
“We can’t be disappointed in that because the court has spoken, we came to court for the matter to be determined and the court has determined it. This is part one, part two will follow, so we have to wait to the end of it,” Mr Siaw in an interview on Joy FM after the court proceedings on Friday.
“We need to clarify the issue, what the court has dismissed today is the application for injunction. We were asking the court that nobody should pay the fee until the final determination of the main substantive suit. What it said is that, that application has failed and that means that we should go look for the money and go and pay the filing fees.
“The substantive matter he fixed for 11th of October for us to meet and then we will go into the matter… So, the matter is not ended what has happened today is that even if you go and pay, this court has the capacity to take your money back with interest as the counsel for the EC submitted, so we have just as a matter of case released the hands of the Electoral Commission to collect its filing fees so that the process can move on and the matter that we brought, that the fee that is being charged is not backed by law will be determined subsequently”.
The two parties (PPP and EC) will be back in court on Tuesday for the hearing of the substantive suit challenging the legality of the fees.
The PPP is challenging the legality of the EC’s decision to charge of GHC50,000 fee for presidential nominees and GHC10,000 for parliamentary nominees as filing fees, an action it has described as arbitrary use of power by the commission.
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