An Accra High court has given the Electoral Commission (EC) clearance to receive filing fee from Presidential and Parliamentary nominees.
The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) filed an application for injunction praying that the court restrains the EC from receiving the said amount being charged was a capricious and arbitrary use of power.
PPP lawyer Dennis Ofosu Appiah argued in court on Friday that the said amount being charged by the EC was not stated in the law.
He stated that PNDC law 284 requires the Commission to state that said amount to be charged in the regulations for the elections. He pointed out that regulations 8 and 45 of the CI 94 failed to state the specific amount to be charged.
He further argued that the PPP may not be able to contest the polls of their injunction is not granted, because they will be required to provide the said amount .
EC Lawyer opposed the motion. Lawyer Thaddeus Sori stated that the Law allows EC to determine the fee ,which the EC has done.
He said if the PPP cannot pay the said amount,they should have applied for an injunction preventing EC from taking money from PPP and not all parties as they were doing since they cannot assume all other parties cannot pay.
He further pointed out that the PPP had paid the amount .
PPP lawyer Dennis Ofosu Appiah disagreed he said they were in court because they are supposed to pay 2.8million cedis which they have not paid.
Secondly, they presented GHC 50,000 because they were required to do so, the EC per their injunction application was not supposed to accept, so the EC shouldn’t have accepted ,the injunction he added was not directed at preventing parties from presenting the fee.
Justice Mensah ruled that the application had failed to defer his reasons to a latter date.
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