Election2000: Supreme Court dismisses NPP’s application

THE Supreme Court, in a majority decision yesterday, dismissed an application filed by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) seeking the court’s order to prohibit two civil servants from contesting the December 7 parliamentary election on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The court’s decision was made known after it upheld preliminary objection raised by the Deputy Attorney-General, Mr Martin Amidu, challenging the jurisdiction of the court to hear the case.

Mrs Justice Joyce Bamford-Addo, Mr Justice F. Y. Kpegah and Mr Justice W. A. Atuguba upheld the preliminary objections whilst Mr Justice A. K. B. Ampiah and Mr Justice G. K. Acquah dissented.

The five-member panel, presided over by Mrs Justice Bamford-Addo, fixed November 21, this year to give reasons for the decision.

The NPP filed the writ to seek an order of interim injunction to restrain the NDC from fielding Mr Kofi Opoku-Manu, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance, and Mr Joseph Oteng-Adjei, Director of Energy at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, as its parliamentary candidates in this year’s general elections in so far as they remained in office as senior civil servants.

The writ also sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining Messrs Opoku-Manu and Oteng-Adjei from standing as parliamentary candidates in the December 7 elections in so far as they were ineligible to be members of parliament.

The writ said the NDC put forward the two candidates to contest the December parliamentary election in the Asante Akyem North and Bosomtwe constituencies respectively in contravention of the 1992 Constitution.

In his submissions at the last adjourned date, Mr Amidu, who appeared for the NDC and the two candidates, made reference to the 1992 Constitution and said it was abundantly clear that the Supreme Court could not hear the case.

According to him, since no election had been conducted, no cause of action arose in any court let alone to evoke an intervention by the Supreme Court.

Mr Amidu further submitted that on the representation of PNDC Law 284, the qualification of a person to be a candidate is different from the qualification or the eligibility of a candidate to be an MP.

He said in the case of Mr Opoku-Manu and Mr Oteng-Adjei, the NPP were only relying on speculations from newspaper reports.

He, however, informed the court that as at the commencement of the case, Mr Opoku-Manu had resigned his position as the Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance whilst Mr Oteng-Adjei is not a civil servant but a public servant.

On his part, counsel for the NPP, Nana Akufo Addo, associated himself with the call to strike out the action against Mr Opoku-Manu on the grounds that information reaching him indicated that Mr Opoku-Manu had resigned from office and ceases to be a civil servant.

On the substantive case itself, Nana Akufo Addo said the NPP only sought the enforcement of a provision of the Constitution and not its interpretation.

He said the bone of contention was for the court to determine who was eligible or not to stand the election.

Nana Akufo Addo contended that the issue of speculation did not arise because at the time of filing the writ, both Mr Opoku-Manu and Mr Oteng-Adjei, who were civil servants at that time, had filed their nominations to contest the elections as parliamentary candidates on the ticket of the NDC.