Private Legal Practitioner, Lawyer Kwasi Botchway Jnr., has raised concerns over the practical and financial implications of the Supreme Court’s decision barring political parties from using electoral college systems to elect presidential and parliamentary candidates.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-2 majority decision, ruled in a suit brought by Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng and Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe that political parties cannot restrict participation in their parliamentary and presidential primaries to selected delegates.
The apex court directed that political parties must put in place arrangements to allow all card-bearing members to participate in the selection of candidates for national elections.
The ruling effectively ends the long-standing delegates system used by Ghana’s major political parties, including the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), where selected party representatives vote to elect presidential and parliamentary candidates.
However, reacting to the development, Lawyer Kwasi Botchway Jnr. questioned the practical realities of implementing the ruling, particularly regarding the financial burden such an exercise could impose on political parties.
In a post on Facebook, the private legal practitioner asked whether the State would now be expected to finance internal elections of political parties.
“So, is the State now expected to fund the parliamentary and presidential primaries of political parties?” he questioned.
Lawyer Botchway Jnr. further raised concerns about whether a court could compel a political party to organise elections involving millions of members if the party lacks the financial capacity to conduct such an exercise.
“Can a court compel a political party to conduct elections for more than five million registered members when the party does not have the financial capacity to organise such an exercise?” he asked.
He also questioned the limits of judicial intervention, wondering at what point a directive from the court moves beyond enforcing a legal obligation into creating a requirement that may be difficult or impossible for institutions to implement.
“At what point does a judicial directive cross the line from enforcing a legal obligation to imposing an obligation that is practically and financially impossible to fulfil?” he wrote.
The Supreme Court’s decision has already generated significant debate on social media.
Proponents of the ruling contend that political parties, as key actors in Ghana’s democratic process, must embrace more inclusive mechanisms that allow ordinary members a direct role in choosing candidates who represent them in national elections and to also end the vote buying agenda in our body politics.
Critics, however, have raised concerns about the logistics, cost and administrative challenges associated with conducting nationwide primaries involving millions of party members.
The Supreme Court, while invalidating the electoral college arrangement, maintained that decisions, appointments and elections lawfully conducted under the previous system before the judgment would remain valid and unaffected.
Source: Purefmonlineg.com || Evans Osei-Bonsu || 2026
