<<Print>>

President John Mahama would not be deemed by law to have ever been a president of the republic if the Supreme Court overturn a declaration by the Electoral Commission (EC) that he won the 2012 presidential polls, lawyer Ernest Abotsi has explained. The Petitioners in the ongoing election petition are praying the Supreme Court to overturn the declaration that John Mahama as the rightful winner of the last December polls because of what they allege was massive fraud during the elections. They are asking the court to also declare the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate for that election, Nana Akuffo Addo as president. The court on Wednesday gave the opportunity to Petitioners and Respondents to give the final statements of their case before the court gives a judgement on the petition. In his last address, Tsatsu Tsikata who is counsel for the third respondent - National Democratic Congress (NDC)- said the demands by the Petitioners are nothing but a request for the judges to impose a retroactive penalty on innocent voters who went to queue in the sun to vote, a request that is not backed by law and should not be taken seriously. But Mr. Abotsi, speaking to Joy News, disagreed with Tsatsu Tsikata's claim of retroactivity. He noted that there is nothing retroactive about nullifying invalid votes obtained by a candidate in an election. He pointed out that in the event of a judgement that upholds the case of the Petitioners, the president, according to the law, would have been deemed never to have been in office. He explained that this is because as far as the 1992 Constitution is concerned violations against it is considered null and void. �Right never passed, liabilities never created and you cannot even claim to have even exercised that particular position, power or authority conferred on you�, he said. Lawyer Abotsi said the constitution nonetheless preserves the actions of the president during the period in which he occupied the position for the �purposes of reality�, but technically he was never a president.