Court Bars Gt Accra NDC From Holding Elections

An Accra High Court has placed an interim injunction restricting the Greater Accra Regional National Democratic Congress (NDC) from holding elections for various positions in the party. The ruling also restricted the regional executive committees of the party from selling, receiving, endorsing nomination forms or doing anything required for the organisation of elections in the party from the constituency to the regional level. The court, presided over by Mrs Justice Barbara Ward Acquah, said the order would remain for a period of 10 days. The writ was filed by Mr Bossman Oduro-Fosu against the NDC for flouting paragraph 6 (c) vi of the party�s constitution on the election of party executives. He was represented in court by Mr David D. Koko and Kwesi Coleman, while the NDC was not represented by a counsel. Background It would be recalled that Mr Oduro-Fosu filed a suit against the NDC few weeks ago praying the court to place a perpetual injunction on the election of regional executive committee members of the party until the revocation of paragraph six (c) vi of the party�s constitution. The paragraph in contention states that �In addition, a member of the party shall not qualify to vie for a regional executive committee position unless the member has prior to seeking elections held an executive position in the constituency.� According to him, the purported paragraph was added to the party�s constitution without going to congress for amendment, hence the need for the court to declare it null and void. In his statement of claim, Mr Oduro-Fosu asked the court to declare the results issued by the National Executive Committee (NEC) for the election of party executive officers for 2014 as unconstitutional due to the reliance on paragraph six (c) vi. He also argued that the supposed addition was in direct conflict with Article 42 (1) which states that �A person shall not be qualified to hold office as a member of the Executive Committee of the party at any level if he does not meet the conditions for membership as set out in clause 2 of Article 8 of this constitution.� He further argued that Article 42 (3) d of the constitution expressly states that �the party Executive Committee at that level shall decide on the eligibility or otherwise of any candidate�. Party�s response In a response, the Greater Accra Regional Secretary of the NDC, Mr Aristo Aryee, said the decision was taken at a NEC level, adding that it was one of the guidelines for the organisation of the national elections of the party. He buttressed his point with Article 50 of the party�s constitution, saying that the NEC reserved the right to set out the broad guidelines for the election of any executive of the party.