PRESIDENT OF the Legal Advocacy Foundation, Dr. Maurice Kwabena Ampaw has depicted the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) as a hollow organisation which ought to be scraped.
The legal luminary believes the commission has been reneging on its core duty to educate Ghanaians on civil and legal matters, particularly the verdict of the Supreme Court on the 2012 presidential election petition, thereby making it appear to have outlived its usefulness.
Speaking at a press conference in Kumasi yesterday, Dr. Ampaw said the NCCE had failed to sustain interest in promoting constitutionalism and advocating rule of law by not taking time to bring the verdict to the doorsteps of the ordinary Ghanaian.
He took a swipe at the NCCE Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, for suggesting in her public comment on the Supreme Court verdict that the petitioners lost as a result of lack of evidence.
The Legal Advocacy Foundation president argued the NCCE boss� statement passed for misinformation and called on her to retract and apologize as that was not the case per the judgment of the court.
Dr. Ampaw entreated civil society groups, traditional and religious leaders and foreign agencies to develop interest in pushing up Ghana�s democracy and supporting constitutional rule.
He also damned a statement by Justice William Atubuga which suggested that the Judiciary should not easily invalidate public election, describing it as �unconstitutional� as it was against the letter and spirit of Articles 64, 51 and 63 of the 1992 Constitution.
To him, such a position would only retrench the Electoral Commission as a law unto itself without accountability of its stewardship.
He argued that since the Constitution talked about valid votes in public election any attempt striving at all cost to sustain public election even if not in conformity with law might be discriminatory.
It was his view that the petitioners lost the case because the relief sought�thus seeking to annul votes and based on the annulment the court declares Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as president�was unfair and inequitable because �he who seeks equity must do equity.�
�Therefore, the petitioners should have asked for annulment and re-run of the election,� he suggested and added that the petitioners ought to have also blamed their polling agents for endorsing the alleged malpractices, omissions and allegation without making formal complaints.
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