Legal luminary Tsatsu Tsikata has described the disenfranchisement of voters in the Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi (SALL) areas as a grave threat to Ghana’s democratic order.
He warned that the episode exposes dangerous gaps in the country’s constitutional practice.
Speaking on PM Express on Joy News, Mr Tsikata insisted that the exclusion of over 17,000 voters from the 2020 parliamentary elections was not only unfair but demands redress.
“Yes, because they are part of this country, if they had a representative in parliament, that representative would have had access to the Common Fund and so on, which they could have used for projects in that area.
“During those four years, they had no representation. And so in my mind, whatever the state can do to ensure that what they were not able to access in that period should be accorded to them. I think that’s fair.”
Mr Tsikata, who served as counsel for petitioners in the case challenging the Hohoe parliamentary election won by John Peter Amewu, stressed that the consequences of the exclusion go beyond development deficits.
“I really believe that what happened in respect of SALL is not only unprecedented, but it is a danger to the Republic, because if you can have these situations where pockets of the country find that they are somehow just excluded, you can imagine how the build-up of that sort of experience, it’s more than one few places.”
The SALL communities were unable to vote in the parliamentary elections after the Electoral Commission ruled that there was no designated constituency for them following the creation of the Oti Region, despite their inclusion in the Hohoe municipality.
Mr Tsikata drew on legal philosophy to underline the broader implications for governance and justice.
“That’s why I also use the analogy of my law professor Hart, that you want to distinguish a legal system from a gang of robbers. Because a legal system is a system which is understood by the whole society, as you know, working for the benefit of the society as a whole.”
He warned that mere declarations of the rule of law are insufficient if citizens experience exclusion in practice.
“And that’s why we talk about the rule of law, equality before the law. But this shouldn’t just be pronouncements, because if they are just pronouncements, then you can also have a gang of robbers which constitutes itself into seemingly an order, and they try to instruct people what to do and so on.”
He further urged the judiciary and legal practitioners to reinforce public trust through demonstrable commitment to justice.
“But there is a difference, and we lawyers and those in the judiciary must eagerly ensure that that differentiation is clear in the minds of the population, that we are there to administer justice.
“That must be the clear testimony on the part of judges. We’re there, and what we’re doing is in the interest of justice.”
“Some of the experiences that I’ve recounted do not suggest that, but I think we can encourage more and more of that commitment to justice, that commitment to the rule of law and so on. You know, these are not just phrases that.”
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com