Tight Security At Court Today Following �Caning� Episode

The Supreme Court will today, amid tight security, deliver its ruling on a joinder application filed by National Democratic Congress (NDC). The NDC seeks the court to, among other things, allow it to be joined as a respondent in the election petition brought by three members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), including its 2012 presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo, challenging the results of the December polls, as declared by the Electoral Commission (EC). It would be recalled that cane-wielding angry supporters of the governing NDC last Wednesday besieged the precincts oft eh Supreme Court in Accra apparently to whip some persons they did not name. However, the Enquirer newspaper gathered that there will be heavy security presence at the Supreme Court as a move to quell the recurrence of last week� incident. DCOP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, Deputy Regional Police Commander, Accra in an interview yesterday said all is set to provide adequate security at the courts today. He said the Service have deployed in his words �adequate personnel� to cordon off the place. Insisting that he had just come out of a security meeting which has put all the security arrangements in place, DCOP Tetteh Yohuno noted that anybody wanting to take the law into his or her hands will not be spared, adding that �This time the warning has gone to all of them, nobody will be spared.� The Accra Deputy Regional Police Commander was empathic that adequate security will be provided. Though DCOP Tetteh Yohuno said the police have not made any arrests following the supposed whipping incident at the court last week, he was sure any culprit who tries it this time around will not go unpunished. Earlier, the NDC as a party had filed a motion for joinder in the case on the grounds that the party had nominated and sponsored the first respondent who won the 2012 general elections. According to the party�s lead counsel, Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, the NDC as a party per the constitution and the electoral laws has the right to be allowed to join in the petition. He dismissed claims by the petitioners that its application would unduly delay the entire process before the court. But Mr. Philip Addison, lead counsel for the petitioners, objected to the joinder application by the NDC as a party, saying the Constitutional Instrument (CI74) does not allow political parties to be joined in a petition such as the one before the court. He further argued that if the court grants the joinder application, it will open the floodgates for other parties to also seek similar applications. He therefore prayed the court to dismiss the application for it will unjustifiably delay the process.