The petition filed for the removal of the Chair of the Electoral Commission (EC) Jean Mensa is not surprising, private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has said.
Kpebu made the point that when Ghanaians called for the audit of the voter register, Madam Mensa refused to grant the request, an indication that they were hiding something.
“I am not surprised it was clear Jean Mensa was going to go. When we asked for an audit of the voter register, Jean Mensa would not allow it, so you could see there was something they were hiding,” he said on the News Central on TV3, Monday, December 1.
Seven petitions were filed against the Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, and her two deputies, Dr Bossman Eric Asare, who is in charge of Corporate, and Samuel Tettey, in charge of Operations.
Three other petitions are against the removal of the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng.
The state-owned Graphic Online’s Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson indicate that the various petitions have been forwarded to the Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie.
Article 70(2) of the Constitution states that “The President shall, acting on the advice of the Council of State, appoint the Chairman, Deputy Chairmen and other members of the Electoral Commission.”
The Chairperson of the EC and the deputies have the same conditions of service as those of Justices of the superior courts — the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court — and so are their removal processes.
While the Chairperson of the EC has the same terms and conditions of service as a Justice of the Court of Appeal, the two Deputy Chairmen of the Commission have the same terms and conditions of service as are applicable to a Justice of the High Court.
