Following the release of the full judgment on James Gyakye Quayson’s case by the Supreme Court, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has registered its disapproval of the reasoning of the apex court.

The Director of Legal Affairs of the NDC, Lawyer Abraham Amaliba says the party is finding it difficult to comprehend the basis of the court in directing the removal of James Gyakye Quayson’s name from the records of Parliament as the Member of Parliament for Assin North.

Reacting to the judgment on Monday, June 5, 2023, Mr. Abraham Amaliba described as ‘mind boggling’ the failure of the apex court to particularly address Section 21 D of the PNDC Law 284.

He explained that per that law, the court can only nullify the election of a person if he or she was not qualified at the time of an election, and not at the time of filing his or her nomination. He therefore cannot fathom why the court ruled on the case based on Mr. Quayson’s qualification at the time of filing his nominations.

“So the question is why did the Supreme Court fail to address section 21 D?” he quizzed.

According to him, he expected the apex court to analyze that section of the law and deal with it “and then say that notwithstanding that, we think that the time for qualification is nomination.”

He said the court was not supposed to turn its back on section 21 D of the PNDC Law 284 unless it had a strong reason not to do so.

“In ex parte national lottery, this is what Justice Atuguba said ‘Courts are servants of the legislature and must give effect to the expert provision of the statutes unless there is a strong policy why that should not be done,” Lawyer Abraham Amaliba argued.