Ghana's Supreme Court Resumes Sitting To Set Rules For 2012 Presidential Election petition 

The Supreme court will resume sitting this morning to consider, resolve and adopt some issues to be raised by lawyers in the petition contesting the legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama.  

The Court's sitting is likely to mark the hurdle to be cleared before the hearing of the substantive petition.  

During the sitting, the Court will arrive at issues for trial and subsequent determination based on the rules of the Court, the law, consultation with parties in the case where the need arises, evidence before it and also according to its discretion.  

In doing that, the court is expected to decide whether or not to immediately reject some, approve all or fix a date to rule on more than 30 issues proposed by the parties to be set aside for determination.  

It will also concentrate on stalemate matters and resolve those issues.  

Key among the issues to be looked into is whether President Mahama was validly elected as President in the December 2012 Presidential polls. 

Other vital issues likely to be adopted by the court is whether or not voting took place without prior biometric verification at certain polling stations across the country.  

The nine-member panel is also expected to consider or reject whether or not the alleged statutory violations,  irregularities resulted in 4,675,004 invalid votes being introduced into the total number of votes cast.  

During its sitting, lawyers for the petitioners, President Mahama, the Electoral Commission and the NDC are expected to formally announce  the outcome of a meeting held on the 17th of last month in their bid to arrive at a common ground on issues to be narrowed down for determination.

Meanwhile the Electoral Commission has requested the  Supreme Court to order the  petitioners challenging the results of the 2012 Presidential  polls to provide further and better particulars on 28 locations where they alleged voting took place without authority.  

According to the EC, the  petitioners have up to date not complied with  the court's orders to provide further and  better particulars on the said 28 locations.  

The  petitioners in an amended petition, alleged that  voting took place at 28 locations  which  were not part of the 26,002 polling stations created by the  EC which has been  sued alongside President Mahama for  allegedly padding results in favour of President  Mahama.

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