Supreme Court Must Handle All Electoral Disputes � Lawyer

Lawyer Rowland Atta-Kesson has said the Supreme Court should be allowed to preside over all electoral disputes recorded in Ghana. As it is now, the High Court is the proper forum where such cases are being addressed. It is against this backdrop that lawyer Atta-Kesson is suggesting that the Supreme Court should be empowered to deal with all electoral cases that go beyond the High Court�s jurisdiction. �In our case, the High Court is the proper forum under Article 99 (1),� he said. �The question, however, remains that which court has jurisdiction to hear an electoral petition from a High Court?� Lawyer Atta-Kesson said the answer is in Article 99 (2), which states that a person aggrieved by the determination of the High Court may appeal to the Court of Appeal. However, Dr Kwesi Jonah, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Democratic Governance, who is also an associate member of Atuguba and Associates disagreed. He said: �It does not impinge on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in anyway; the same Constitution which says the Supreme Court will exercise such jurisdiction, as the constitution confers. �It is the same Constitution that says in the case of electoral disputes, the matter should be terminated at the Appeals Court level.�