The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Godfred Yeboah Dame have asked members of the Ghana Bar Association to support the Electoral Commission (EC) in its quest to organize a free, fair, and transparent election in 2024.
Mr. Dame also called on the Bar to resist what he described as “misguided and parochial efforts of certain characters” to undermine the work of the EC.
Speaking at the recent Bar Conference held in Ho, in the Volta Region, the Attorney-General says the EC has demonstrated a clear understanding of the sacred responsibility it bears to the people of Ghana and for that matter needs the support of lawyers in the country as it continues to discharge its duty to the people.
This clear understanding of its duty, he says, has resulted in the EC holding credible elections in 2020.
“I consider it fitting as the leader of the Bar, to call on lawyers to support the Electoral Commission as presently constituted, to persist in its quest to deliver for the nation a free, fair and credible election capable of measuring up to the test of international standards, and also for the Bar to resist the misguided and parochial efforts of certain characters to undermine our democracy through unwarranted attacks on the Electoral Commission”, he said.
“I am pleased to observe that over the course of time, the Electoral Commission of Ghana clearly has demonstrated a sound understanding of the sacred responsibility it bears to the people of Ghana to organize elections in a manner prescribed by the Constitution.
“This clear understanding of its basic duty to hold credible elections was firmly established in 2020 when under the most trying conditions forced upon the world by COVID-19, the Electoral Commission of Ghana remained unshaken in its quest to give the people of Ghana an opportunity to select their own leadership.
“The Electoral Commission indeed rose to the occasion and delivered an internationally affirmed free, fair, and perhaps, the most transparent elections in Ghana since the inception of the Fourth Republican Constitution” he added.
He again added that the 2020 election was so credible that even the complaints of unfairness made by the losing National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate were unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court of Ghana.
