-Wants Injunction against Petition for Her Removal.
The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Adukwei Mensah, along with her two deputies is swinging for the fence in a bid to ensure that a petition to have them removed from office on grounds of stated misbehavior and incompetence is not determined by the Chief Justice.
They want the Supreme Court to place an injunction on the CJ, Kwasi Anin Yeboah, to prevent him from sitting on the petition by the #FixTheCountry Movement filed to President Akufo-Addo asking that Jean Mensah and her two deputies be removed for criminally disenfranchising the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) in the 2020 elections.
“An order of perpetual injunction directed against 2nd defendant from determining, dealing, or having anything to do in any manner whatsoever and/or howsoever, with any issues arising out of the contents of Petitioner’s Petition or at all,” stated the EC boss in her suit.
Critics believe that Jean Mensah, acknowledging her glaring misconduct worthy of removal is attempting to arm-twist the courts to protect her with a nuisance lawsuit that would only drag her removal on grounds of legal technicalities.
In the suit which was in response to President Akufo-Addo forwarding the Movement’s petition to the Chief Justice in keeping with due process, Chief Justice Anin Yeboah is the second Defendant.
The First Defendant is the Convener of the #FixTheCountry Movement, Mr. Oliver Barker Vormawor while the Attorney General is named as the third defendant.
This controversy is brewing because, in the 2020 elections, the people of the SALL had been denied the opportunity to vote in the Parliamentary elections as a result of the EC’s deliberate refusal to create a constituency for them following the carving of the Oti region out of the Volta Region.
As a result of the failure, the people of the so-called SALL were disenfranchised and thus do not have representatives in the 8th Parliament, a travesty of justice that is not their fault.
The disgraceful situation which has been described as “a sin” by US-based Ghanaian Law Professor, Kwaku Azar, led to the pressure group filing a petition to President Akufo-Addo to remove Jean Mensah, whose performance as EC boss has been punctuated by shocking incompetence including crude arithmetic mistakes that marred the 2020 elections and cast doubt on the fairness of the election.
In keeping with due process, president Akufo-Addo forwarded the petition to the Chief Justice, who is required by law to put together a committee to consider the merits of the petition and on that basis either recommend the dismissal of Jean Mensah and her deputies or allow them to stay.
It is while the Chief Justice is yet to convene that committee that Jean Mensah and her cohorts have run to the Supreme Court asking for the apex court to injunct the head of the Judiciary so he will not even consider the petition.
Apparently, with the grounds of the petition being solid, Jean Mensah fears that if it is allowed to be determined, it will not go in her favour – the disenfranchisement of the people of SALL was solely the doing of the Jean Mensah-led EC.
In 2020, chiefs in the area, fearing they would be disenfranchised had written to the EC several times asking that processes be sped up to ensure they have their constituency before the 2020 elections, but Jean Mensah EC dragged its feet until the people were disenfranchised.
In her suit asking for the Chief Justice to be placed under a perpetual injunction from determining the petition, Jean Mensah claims that the Movement’s publication of the contents of the petition in the media after they wrote to the president erodes its legitimacy.
However, Barker-Vormavor had categorically denied publishing any of the content of the petition. What he did announce publicly was the fact that important pages had been torn out of the petition when it left the Jubilee House for the Chief Justice. The content of those pages and how they were removed still remains a mystery.