Attempt by a resident of Digya Island in Afram Plains North district in Eastern region to injunct the Electoral Commission (EC)
at the Koforidua High Court has failed due to alleged deliberate delay by the Registrar of the court to in the filing of the process on Monday September 11,2023.
The delay in filing the process made it impossible to be served on the EC.
Counsel for the plaintiff Lawyer Isaac Minta Larbi was livid by the action of the Registrar accused him of deliberately thwarting the process to enable the EC go ahead on the registration on September 12,2023.
The Applicant says, travelling on Digya Island by boat will take him some three hours before boarding car to Donkorkrom, the district office to register.
This he said ,will inconvenience him and prevent him from taking part in the exercise.
He said in the affidavit that “I resides at Xedro, Digya Island in the Afram Plains North District in the Eastern Region of Ghana, which has no direct route to the district office of the Electoral Commission in Donkorkrom.That the district office of the Electoral Commission which is located at Donkorkrom is not accessible from where I live at Xedro, Digya Island.
That if I even have to manage to find a way there I would have to cross the Volta Lake from Digya Island using the pontoon which would travel for about three (3) hours on the lake alone, before getting to the nearest village where I would now have to ask for directions which would take me through places I have never been before and cannot go through as a teen”.
The plaintiff continued “that the villages surrounding Digya Island after the lake are as deprived as that of Digya Island with no roads, electricity, schools, clinics, etc for which reason it is not possible to even travel through those places to try to locate Donkorkrom to the District Office of the EC.That a simple check on Google Maps to try to travel from Digya National Park to Donkorkrom shows that there is no road to Donkorkrom from Digya National Park let alone from the Digya Island which is located somewhere in the middle of the Volta Lake. Please See Exhibit “DIGYA” attached herein”
That I have been told that if I have to go to Donkorkrom from Digya Island I would have to board the pontoon for three hours to go to the nearest village and then find a way to go through Ho in the Volta Region, travel to Koforidua in the Eastern Region and then go through Nkawkaw before travelling on the pontoon again to Afram Plains before travelling again to Donkorkrom. And when I am done with the registration I would have to go through the same route before getting back to Digya Island.That this is impossible for me to do.”
Unfortunately, the High Court in Koforidua allegedly frustrated the filing of the application.
According to the Lawyer ,the registrar delayed the process until it was late in the day before the application was filed by which time serving the EC was practically impossible.
“Even after the filing which took place very late in the day, the Registrar was directing bailiffs to go to Accra and serve the EC when service can be effected everywhere irrespective of the address which is stated on the face of the document.This attempt to frustrate the filing and service of processes in court when citizens of this country have the right to go to court is very unfortunate” Lawyer Minta Larbi stated .
He said the “Registrars of the courts do not have any power to interfere in the filing of processes in court but unfortunately this is happening at a time when critical action needs to be taken if not it may be too late.We can’t have a court whose officers can manipulate and frustrate litigants. That would be the very first step towards the denial of justice.
Source:Mybrytfmonline.com/Obed Ansah
