Supreme Court Dismisses MPS’ Injunction Application Against E-levy

The Supreme Court of Ghana has dismissed the application of the three Members of Parliament (MP) seeking to injunct the implementation of the Electronic Transfers Levy (E-levy).

The dismissal of the application was a unanimous decision of 7 judges.

According to Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor the Member of Parliament representing the South Dayi constituency in the Volta Region, “the Court relied on the doctrine of Omnia pracsnmuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium”.

The doctrine states that “All things are presumed to have been legitimately done until the contrary is proved.”

“The Application has been refused. It was a Unanimous decision. The Court relied on the doctrine of omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium. A thing is presumed regular until otherwise declared”, Dafeamekpor tweeted.

The application was filed by three National Democratic Congress (NDC) MPs including Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, MP for Bawku Central constituency, Mahama Ayariga and MP for North Tongu constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.

According to the Minority in Parliament, the passage of the E-levy by Parliament was done unconstitutionally.

“The substantive case is premised on the fact that as the Supreme court has held in the Abdulai case that 138 Members of Parliament is the decision-making threshold. On the day we staged our walk-out, we had only 136 MPs on the NPP side of the House. Remember that on the 26th of November, when 137 NDC MPs purported to have rejected the 2022 budget, the Supreme Court held that that cannot hold and we needed 138. If 137 cannot make a decision, an inferior number of 136 cannot purport to have taken a decision on the E-levy”, representative of the North Tongu constituency in Parliament, Ablakwa said in an interview.

The application was filed on April 19, 2022.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini