Allowing CI 126 To Mature Is Akin To Scraping Article 45(a) ….Brogya Gyenfi

A private citizen, Brogya Gyenfi, has called on Parliament to reject CI 126, the Constitutional Instrument that the Electoral Commission is seeking approval for to govern its compilation of a new voters’ register.

Mr. Geyenfi, in a write-up, argues that if CI126 is allowed to mature it will make nonsense of Article 45(a) of the 1992 constitution which governs the voters’ register and anchors its existence as a continuum.

“I encourage the Parliament of Ghana to reject the Constitutional Instrument 126 before it matures. Allowing C.I. 126 to pass will be akin to amending or more injurious, repealing Article 45(a) of the Constitution,” Brogya Gyenfi wrote.

Explaining his position, he points out that per the constitution, the voters’ register is supposed to be compiled once and then continually updated by way of eliminating the names of unqualified people and adding new voters onto it. 

Indeed, he points out that Article 45 (a) as governing legislation for voter registration mandates the EC; “to compile the register of voters and revise it at such periods as may be determined by law.”

The current voters’ register, he points out was first compiled in 1995, and thenceforward all that the EC has done in keeping with the law is revise it periodically.

Consequently, in 2004 and 2012 when there were major revisions, the ECD did not scrape the register and recompile new ones but only updated the existing register.

This tradition of periodic revisions of the voters’ register is not what the Jean Mensah led Electoral Commission is seeking to do with CI126, he points out.

“”the register of voters…” referenced in Article 45(a) obviously anticipated the 1995 voters register which would have been the first-ever voters register under the 1992 Constitution,” he said.

When that register was compiled in 1995, the Electoral Commission was then supposed to revise it periodically as determined by law.

 “My belief is safely anchored on the fact that Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) 12, offered equal opportunity for all registered voters in the 1995 register to be recaptured without hindrance. Technically, not a single registered voter in the 1995 register, living and willing, was disenfranchised in 2004,” said Mr. Gyenfi.

He observed Madama Jean Mensah’s move to vandalize the established tradition of updating the voters’ register is even confusing because as late as 2019, the EC Chairperson accepted identification cards from all previous voter registration under the fourth republic as a source document for the 2019 limited registration.

“The 1995 voters register is the mother of all registers… and thus, any registration of voters that seeks to truncate its umbilical artery from the 1995 register of voters, would be suggested to be un-constitutional, in my books,” he wrote.

Brogya Gyenfi’s statement is coming in the heels of the NDC dragging the EC to the Supreme Court to stop it in its tracks.