General News of Sunday, 22 May 2016

Source: kasapafmonline.com

Allow EC apply laws in implementation of SC ruling – Pratt

Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr has defended the Electoral Commission’s resolve to expunging names of ineligible persons on the electoral roll according to the provisions of the law.

Pratt said the EC has done no wrong to insist that it will submit to the Supreme court’s order, according to the existing laws that guide such process.

The EC has said the Supreme court’s ruling did not instruct the commission to delete the names of those who registered with their NHIS cards.

According to the EC, per the ruling, such names can only be removed using the already existing processes used for expunging ineligible names.

This was contained in a response to the Supreme Court ruling on a case brought before it by Mr Abu Ramadan, former National Youth Organiser of the PNC and one Evans Nimako that challenged the credibility of the register.

Critics have averred that the order given by the Supreme Court was emphatic and unambiguous, so the EC must not be recalcitrant in dragging its feet towards the implementation of the apex court’s ruling.

But Mr. Pratt has lashed out on political parties who have flaked the EC for claiming to act according to law in relation to the Supreme court’s ruling.

“If political parties promise us that if we vote for them they will abide by the rule of law, they should demonstrate that today by insisting on the application of law. What does the laws say when it comes to deletion of names from the register? If you expect Madam charlotte Osei, because it pleases you today, to be deleting names outside the provisions of the law, then you should not be complaining when other state institutions are acting against the law. It should not be about our convenience, or what we want; It should be about what the law says. There is a law governing society,” Pratt argued on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji Saturday.