The three political parties are the Peoples Redemption Party, founded by a former Governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa; the Peoples Progressive Party; and the Better Nigeria Progressive Party.
Delivering judgment on the suit filed by the political parties, Justice Adeniyi Ademola also declared as unconstitutional, invalid, null and void, the provisions of Section 78(7)(ii) of the Electoral Act 2010, which INEC relied on to deregister the parties.
Section 78(7) (ii) of the Electoral Act confers on INEC the power to deregister a political party that fails to win any of presidential, governorship, national and state assembly elections.
The court dismissed the opposition of INEC and the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation – the two defendants to the suit.
Justice Ademola, in voiding Section 78(7)(ii) of the Electoral Act on Thursday, agreed with the plaintiffs’ counsel, Mr. Chibuzor Ejike, that it was inconsistent with the provisions of sections 1(3), 40 and 221 to 229 of the Constitution,
The judge also agreed with the plaintiffs to the effect that the provisions of Section 1(3) of the Constitution affirmed the supremacy of the Constitution.
The court also agreed with the plaintiffs that the deregistration of the parties was null and void, since they were not afforded the opportunity to contradict the commission’s claim against them before it went ahead to deregister them.
This, the court held, violated the right of the plaintiffs to fair hearing, as guaranteed under Section 36 of the Constitution.
It also held that the deregistration of the three parties, based on the provisions of Section 78(7) (ii), violated their right to freedom of association provided for all citizens under Section 40 of the same Constitution.
It also upheld the plaintiffs’ submission that provisions of section 221 to 229, relating to the powers of INEC, never empowered the commission to deregister political parties that had fulfilled conditions for registration.
It therefore held that the provisions of section 78(7) (ii) of the Electoral Act violated the provisions of the Constitution, which guaranteed the rights for Nigerian citizens to freely join lawful assembly, trade unions and to belong to any political party of their choice.
The judge, who cited a recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case instituted by the National Conscience Party to the effect that INEC lacked the power to deregister political parties, held that “any power or regulation that is inconsistent with provisions of the Constitution is invalid.”
Source: The Punch
No comments:
Post a Comment