A fellow at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD- Ghana), Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has described as the worst judgement, the Supreme Court’s ruling that declared the election of the Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson null and void.
The Supreme Court in its ruling directed Parliament to expunge from its records Mr. Quayson’s name. Parliament later declared the seat vacant paving way for a by-election in Assin North on June 27.
The Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Quayson was not qualified to contest the 2020 parliamentary elections in the Assin North Constituency at the time he filed his nomination forms on October 9, 2020.
In an interview on Citi TV on June 14, Kwaku Azar described as bizarre the Supreme Court’s ruling and added that the case is filled with a plethora of errors.
“Of all the Ghanaian cases I have seen, this one stands out as almost the worst, because when you read the case, there is a plethora of errors. From misinterpreting the Constitution to shredding statues to inserting timelines where there are no timelines. It’s almost as if the court decided we are going to remove this guy [Quayson] for whatever reason. And we don’t care how many laws we break or how many rules we violate. We are going to do it anyway,” Kwaku Azar.
He explained that a person can owe allegiance to a country for a variety of reasons.
“It’s almost like me saying that allegiance and citizenship are inexplicably tied, so when the president swears the oath of allegiance, he’s swearing the oath of citizenship. That is completely bizarre. I have never heard such strange reasoning. One can owe allegiance to a country for a variety of reasons, citizenship is only one of them. People who are not citizens owe allegiance to the country, because they must follow the rules, the government must protect them. We call that local allegiance. When the president swears the oath of allegiance, he’s swearing an occupation-related allegiance,” he avowed.
