The Case

The case was brought to court by Mr George Isaac Amoo, the applicant and NPP parliamentary candidate for the constituency, who sought the orders of Certiorari and Mandamus directing the first Respondent, the Electoral Commission, to bring the election results to the court to be quashed. An order of Certiorari is an order which quashes a decision of a public body. And a Mandamus is an order which compels a public body or authority to perform a particular act.

The 1st Respondent was the Electoral Commission with Mrs Rebecca Akwetey Adotey as the second Respondent.

Mr Amoo's application was based on four grounds: (a) That the Public Elections Regulation of 1996 imposes a duty of care on the Electoral Commission to assemble the results of an election from all the polling stations in a constituency ...and among other things declare ...the candidate with the most votes as winner. And also cause the name such winner to be published in the Gazette. But in the said elections, the ballot box from one polling station was not included in the count before the results were declared.

(b) That at two of the polling stations, the votes for George Amoo were wrongly and erroneously credited to two other candidates while the votes for these candidates were wrongly credited to the applicant thereby "short-changing" him and depriving him of some 329 votes.

(c) That since the said Regulations were not complied with before declaration of the results, the said declaration was null and void and so was the Gazette publication purporting to give notice of the name of the second Respondent - Mrs Rebecca Akwetey Adotey.

(a) And that both the said declaration and the Gazette notice ought to be quashed and the Electoral Commission be mandated to declare the results of the said constituency in accordance with the law. In the supporting affidavit, Mr Amoo said when he discovered that there were serious mistakes in the tally, he wrote to the EC requesting correction to be made but the EC refused to comply. He then filed an election petition which was struck out on 2nd May by an Accra High Court presided over by Justice J. Gbadegbe for non-payment of Security as required by law within the statutory period. Mr Amoo appealed against the decision.

While the appeal was pending Mr Amoo stumbled over a letter written by the EC to the Attorney General in which it not only admitted the errors but also added that the results from one of the polling stations were not added to the total votes cast for each of the candidates before the final results were declared by the EC The respondents opposed the application.

The Commission in an affidavit filed on 23rd June 1996 by the Attorney General as Counsel for the Commission opposing the application, denied in an affidavit sworn by one Kwame Damoah Agyemang that they wrote the said letter. Subsequently, two affidavits, one by David Adeenze Kanga and C.K. Kuwornu all dated 14th July 1997 were filed stating that the Commission indeed wrote the letter which was tendered in court as exhibit "GIA5".

Mrs Justice Dordzie had stern words for the Commission on this issue. At page 31 of her judgement she said "I cannot end this ruling by expressing my regrets at an unfortunate incident which occurred at the initial stages of this case leading to the filing of three affidavits by the 1st respondent. Whatever the intention for denying the existence of Exhibit "GIA5" ... the State Attorneys who were representing the 1st respondent cannot escape blame. State Attorneys, like practising Lawyers, have a duty to fearlessly defend the interest of their clients ... As Law Officers they are also officers of the Court and are to be fair and candid to the Court at all times and to divulge all such necessary information at their disposal. This duty is even more pronounced in criminal cases where the liberty of the citizen is at stake". Mrs Adotey also opposed the application on the twin grounds that:

(a) The application is an action to question electoral results and such can only be commenced by way of an Election Petition and not by prerogative writ. The applicant has exhausted his remedy through petition and cannot apply for the judicial orders of certiorari or mandamus.

(b) There is an appeal pending in the matter and mandamus cannot be tenable in law.

The lawyers involved in the case were Messrs Peter Ala Adjetey and Kwamena Bartels for the applicant - George Amoo; Mr J.B. Quashie-Idun and Mrs Janet Amegatcher for the Commission and Mr Samuel Cudjoe for the second respondent, Mrs Rebecca Adotey.

Hearing of the case began on 21st October 1997 but before the submission of the applicant's case, the objections of the 2nd respondent were heard and the Judge decided to defer judgement until the arguments for the substantive matter have been disposed of.