Bitter but useful lessons for EC

Last Friday, the Supreme Court (SC), in a unanimous decision, placed the district level elections slated for tomorrow, March 3, 2015, on hold.

The seven-member panel, presided over by Mr Justice William Atuguba, also directed the Electoral Commission (EC) to start afresh the process for the opening and picking up of nomination forms.

The day before, the court had directed the EC to stop all advertisements on the polls, pending the final determination of the matter.

The EC is also expected to accept nomination forms from candidates who had earlier been rejected for presenting their forms late and come up with a new date for the conduct of the polls.

Mr Benjamin Eyi Mensah, a fisherman, instituted an action in the SC seeking to invoke the court’s original jurisdiction on the constitutionality or otherwise of the EC barring him from standing for the elections.

The lawyer for the EC relied on Constitutional Instrument 78 (CI 78) to back the EC’s d