Stopping our registration could disenfranchise E/R voters – Lawyer for NIA tells Court

Lawyer for the National Identification Authority (NIA) has told an Accra High Court presided by Justice Daniel Mensah that the NIA had to continue its final lap registration exercise in the Eastern Region in order not to disenfranchise the people of the Region.

This is after the NIA was forced to halt the exercise pursuant to the service of an application for Interlocutory injunction restraining the NIA from continuing with the mass registration exercise in the Eastern Region.

The exercise was therefore suspended effective Saturday, 21 March 2020 pending the final determination of the application for an interlocutory injunction in which the NIA made a presentation to the court against the grant of the injunction.

Arguing before the court against the injunction, the NIA lawyer said there was the need for the Authority to beat an established deadline of March 27th, by which time it expected to have finished the entire national exercise.

“The NIA had to continue the registration exercise in other not to disenfranchise people who reside in the Eastern Region due to the Legislative Instrument presented to Parliament by the Electoral Commission which seeks to make the Ghana card and passport, the two major means of getting onto the new voters’ register.” He argued.

Having listened to both sides, the Accra High Court presided over by Justice Daniel Mensah granted the application for the interlocutory injunction stopping the NIA from continuing with its Eastern Region registration exercise.

The plaintiffs were businessman Prince Henry Tabi and twenty-nine (29) others.

They instituted the action against the NIA after it refused failed to comply with the 15th of March 2020 Executive orders of President Akufo-Addo suspending all public gatherings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

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Source: Mynewsgh.com