Supreme Court reserves ruling in constitutionality of Voters Registrations

The Supreme Court of Liberia has reserved ruling following legal arguments by lawyers representing the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), the National Elections Commission (NEC), and the government in the alleged unconstitutionality of conducting Voters Registration before reapportioning of constituencies.

The CPP of Mr. Alexander Cummings had petitioned the Supreme Court on March 17, accusing the NEC of proceeding with the conduct of the Voters Registration in contravention of the Liberian Constitution Articles 80 E, C and D.

Legal arguments were heard by the five Justices of the Supreme Court of Liberia, including Chief Justice Sie  Nyene Youh, with the NEC represented by former Liberia’s Solicitor General Michael Wright, while the government was represented by acting Solicitor General Nyenatee Tuan of the Justice Ministry and the CPP represented by Counsellor Aloysius Toe and others.

During legal arguments, CPP lawyers maintained that the NEC has proceeded wrongly to conduct Voters Registration without reapportioning constituencies, that NEC registered voters, not in their constituencies, and that Voters Registration card issued by the NEC bears no constituencies name as required by the Liberian Constitution. State Lawyers argued that the Liberian Constitution empowers the National Legislature to set the Threshold and as such the NEC can’t force the Legislature to do so.

State lawyers said in the absence of the Threshold, the NEC proceeded to use the current 73 constituencies to conduct the Voters’ Registration.

However, in counter arguments, CPP lawyers said the use of the current 73 constituencies was wrong since in fact, the law limited its use to only the 2011 elections.

CPP said while the NEC could not force the Legislature to set the Threshold, the NEC could have still proceeded to reapportion constituencies based on the provisional results of the just-ended 2023 National Census which put the country’s population at 5.2 million.

Following hours of arguments and counter arguments, the Supreme Court presided over by Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyene Youh reserved ruling until further notice.