Supreme Court’s Ruling On Assin North Travesty Of Justice - Sammy Gyamfi

Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has said that the Supreme Court’s ruling on Assin North is a travesty of justice. In an interview, Mr. Gyamfi said that it was saddening to read the 35-page judgment as a Ghanaian, as it revealed the Supreme Court’s complete and flagrant disregard for the rule of law in its decision directing Parliament to expunge Gyakye Quayson’s name from its records.

The 35-page judgment of the Supreme Court has only confirmed our [the NDC’s] position that the decision taken by the Supreme Court to annul the election of Gyakye Quayson is nothing but a travesty of justice. You read the entire judgment, and you get sad as a Ghanaian that clear positions of law in this country were clearly disregarded by the Supreme Court in arriving at the conclusion that they arrived at.

Mr. Gyamfi also said that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the eligibility of Mr. Quayson in the 2020 Assin North parliamentary election conflicts with the very law it is tasked to uphold and interpret. Section 20 (b) of the representation of the people’s PNDC Law 284 is clear that a parliamentary election can only be cancelled if that parliamentary candidate was not qualified at the time of his election, with emphasis on the at the time of his election.

The Supreme Court says that the Assin North parliamentary elections were held on December 7, 2020, and at the time of that election, Gyakye Quayson had received the renunciation of his Canadian citizenship on November 26, 2020, ten clear days before the election but the Supreme Court is saying that even though he was qualified before the election, he should have been qualified before his nomination and that he submitted his nomination forms on October 9 and that since his certificate of renunciation came on November 26, 2020, he was not qualified by October 9 when he submitted his form, but the law says he should be qualified at the time of the election.