The Supreme has insisted names of persons who registered with the NHIS cards as their form of identification should be expunged from Ghana’s electoral roll.
There have been almost a month-long contention over grey areas in the Supreme court verdict which concerns the names of persons who used the NHIS cards in registering before the 2012 elections.
The Supreme Court in a ruling Thursday, May 4, 2016 described the nation’s electoral register as “reasonably inaccurate” ordering the EC to clean it up.
But the EC said the Supreme court’s ruling did not instruct the commission to delete the names of those who registered with their NHIS cards.
However, one of the justices who sat on the case weeks ago, Justice Dotse has held that the EC ought to delete names of the persons who used the NHIS cards as a proof of identity while registering because such medium is invalid and unconstitutional for Ghanaian citizenship.
“The Supreme court was quiet forthright and clear that the use of the NHIS cards is unconstitutional, because the criteria for the NHIS card was not based on Ghanaian citizenship but only on residents in Ghana. So any foreigner who is resident in Ghana for six months and more can register under the NHIS card- that was the basis upon our decision in 2014. And the recent one we said the use of the NHIS card is therefore unconstitutional; they should take the opportunity to clean the register of those undesirable persons. Therefore we also didn’t want to disenfranchise anybody, so the Supreme court went on to say anybody who’ll be affected by that exercise must be given the opportunity to register, according to the law and the constitution,” Justice Dotse explained.
