After a district Assembly election was held in Kumasi last year and a declaration had been made in favour of Ms Mary Boatemaa Marfo and have been confirmed by the President as the District Chief Executive (DCE) of the Sekyere East District, three Assembly men in the district had filed a law suit challenging the declaration.

Challenging the case at a Kumasi High Court presided over by Justice Charles Adjei Wilson on the grounds that, the elected DCE did not win the election by the two-third of the total requirements of the vote cast, the court ruled in favour of the Ms Marfo saying that humans are bound to make errors in delivering judgment and that person wgho has acted as the DCE for a year can not be revoked of her position since there was no irregularities in the charges sent to the court.

Francis Gyasi Boateng who is an Assembly Member of the Sekyere East district alongside other two Members of the area were the plaintiffs who had requested from the court on April 20 2017 to nullify the results of the court on the grounds that it was wrong for the Electoral commissioner to have declared the election when Ms Marfo actually attained 25 of the vote cast instead of 26 out of the 38 voters to have achieved the two-third she actually needed.

In a report of the election by the Sekyere District Electoral Officer Cynthia Frimpong, it was stated that she agrees that after rounding up the two-thirds of the 38  38 members to 25 although the actual figure was 25.33.

She said a day after thew declaration she had received a call in which her attention was drawn to the fact that, the 25.33 should have been rounded up to the nearest whole number which was 26 by an Assembly Member.

“I, therefore, informed my bosses at the regional directorate of the anomaly, who confirmed same. My boss suggested that I should leave it at that since the results had already been declared,” she stated in her report.

The Justice in his judgment said,  “the court must not declare that a person has not been duly elected or declare an election void on grounds of omission or inadvertent mistake unless the fault that can be relied upon to invalidate the results of the election is tainted with fraud”.

“This is a matter of significant public concern to disqualify a DCE who has been in office for almost a year due to a marginal error or omission. There must be some judicial restraint.

“Whenever during the course of litigation and the relief sought or the question of enforcement between the two parties are no longer an issue, the case should be considered moot. If the issue before the court or an administrative body becomes moot any time during the course of the proceedings, the court’s response is to dismiss the action” and added that the court will not waste any time on the issue.

Ghanaguardian.com