New Register: EC Provides Legal Basis For Rejecting Voters’ ID To Supreme Court

The Electoral Commission (EC) has filed a document in court to explain why it is excluding the use of the voters’ ID from the list of identification documents for the new voters’ register.

In a 31-page document presented to the Supreme Court, the Electoral Commission among other things argued that it is an independent body and has the constitutional responsibility of determining how any registration exercise will be conducted.

It further said that it had duly presented before Parliament the Constitutional Instrument on the compilation of the new register which does not include the use of the old voters’ ID.

“[The EC has the] sole exclusive constitutional responsibility to compile a voters register and to determine how that compilation will be affected and it is not subject to the direction or control of any other person or body.”

“The second legal basis is that, in exercising its exclusive constitutional duty, the 2nd Defendant [EC] has placed before Parliament a Constitutional Instrument that does not include the use of the existing or old voters ID Cards, exercising its constitutional discretion to do so,” the EC stated in its explanation

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