#UGDecides: Judicial Board’s ruling unfortunate but … – Anthony Julius

One of the presidential candidates in this year’s University of Ghana SRC elections, Julius Kwame Anthony, has described as unfortunate the Judicial Board’s ruling on the case brought before it concerning the Electoral Commission’s decision to the annul the polling results of some three polling stations.

He explained that it was “unfortunate that the irregularities at the Mensah Sarbah Hall especially and Commonwealth Hall were not captured.”

Anthony Julius was however quick to add that although the ruling could be described as unfortunate, it is understandable considering the case that was presented to the Board.

He mentioned that the case presented tothe court was to determine whether it was constitutional for the University of Ghana SRC Electoral Commission led by its Chairman Roland Tettey, to annul some of the polling results and not to ascertain whether there were indeed electoral irregularities at the 4 polling stations.

“…but i understand the ruling of the court because the case presented to them was as to if it was constitutional for the electoral commissioner to annul the results not if there were irregularities,” he said

Although the Level 300 Public Administration and Chinese student gave a hint that his team might seek further clarification from the court, he stated that they were yet to meet to discuss the way forward.

He mentioned that the Defense Counsel for the EC made a claim about the high level of irregularities at the four polling stations but was not given a positive consideration by the court.

“Going forward, let’s see how the legalities with regards to what actually transpired will be dealt with in the court…the defense lawyer for the Commission made a counter claim which was not accepted which means that the Court did not give hearing to that.”

As it stands now, we haven’t met as a team to actually speak over the ruling and its implication so I can not say as an individual that we are going back to court,” he said

Barely 24-hours after the declaration of provisional results by the Electoral Commission, they announced that they had annulled the voting results of some four polling stations; a decision which has been condemned by some political stalwarts in the University of Ghana.

The four polling stations included Commonwealth Hall polling station, Mensah Sarbah polling station, Jean Nelson Aka Hall polling station and the Korle-Bu campus polling station.

In a release signed by the Chairman of the EC, Mr. Roland Eyram Tettey, the nullification of the results in those polling stations is as a result of cases of overvoting and other electoral irregularities.

He added that technical difficulties and the subsequent resignation of the Electoral Commissioner at the Korle-Bu Campus necessitated the cancelling of results.

However, in a case presented before the Judicial Board against the Electoral Commission, the court upheld the polling results at the Mensah Sarbah Hall polling station and Commonwealth polling station.

Nonetheless, the court ruled that fresh elections be held at the Korle-bu campus polling station and the Jean Nelson polling station.

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Story by: Jeffrey Nyabor | universnewsroom.com