The petitioner in the Jomoro parliamentary election case, Joshua Emuah Kofie, has filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Cape Coast after a Sekondi High Court had dismissed the initial application brought before it.
The petitioner had challenged the eligibility of the MP, Dorcas Afo-Toffey, to contest as a representative of the people in the constituency on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The applicant contends that the MP held an Ivorian citizenship at the time of contesting the seat, which contravenes the 1992 Constitution.
The Sekondi High Court dismissed the petition and declared the MP eligible on grounds that she lost her Ivorian citizenship at the very time she acquired her Ghanaian citizenship, per Article 48 of the Ivorian Nationality Code.
The court, therefore indicated that the 1st respondent, Dorcas Affo-Toffey, was not an Ivorian citizen at the time she filed her nomination forms to contest as an MP.
However, the petitioner had prayed the Court of Appeal to overturn the previous ruling.
He stated that he was dissatisfied with the judgment of the Sekondi High Court on November 21, 2022 on the grounds that the judgment was against the weight of evidence.
He asserted in his grounds of appeal that the trial judge committed an error of law when he held that by Article 48 of the Ivorian Nationality Code, the 1st respondent’s letter to the Ivorian authorities dated January 24, 2019 was evidence of loss of her Ivorian nationality.
He indicated that Article 48 and title “V’ of the code makes express provision for declaration not the letter.
“There was no evidence of any such declaration having been made by the 1st respondent,” he stated.
He said the trial judge fell in grave error when he accepted the evidence of Dadje Ange Rodrigue, the Ivorian practicing lawyer ‘hook, line and sinker’ without the barest judicial evaluation whatsoever.
He added that the trial judge also misdirected himself and erred in law when he found that 1st respondent lost her Ivorian nationality when she took on Ghanaian nationality under Article 48 of the Ivorian Nationality Code.
“When 1st respondent on her own showing and from the evidence adduced had been a Ghanaian from birth and could not now be taking on Ghanaian nationality,” he added.