Supreme Court to rule on Kpandai election Certiorari application January 28

Ghana’s Supreme Court will on 28 January 2026 decide whether to overturn a High Court judgment that nullified the 2024 parliamentary election result in Kpandai in the Northern Region.

A five-member panel – Justices Gabriel Pwamang, Omoro Tanko, Yonny Kulendi, Samuel Asiedu and Henry Anthony Kwofie – has reserved its ruling after hearing legal arguments on an application asking the apex court to supervise and set aside the Tamale High Court’s decision of 24 November 2025.

Counsel for the applicant, Gary Nimako Marfo, is asking the Supreme Court to exercise its supervisory powers under Article 132 of the Constitution, Section 5 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459) as amended, and Section 61 of C.I. 16.

He argued that the Tamale High Court wrongly assumed jurisdiction over the parliamentary election petition, insisting the case was filed out of time.

Mr Marfo told the court that the Electoral Commission (EC) gazetted the Kpandai parliamentary results on 24 December 2024, and that under Article 99 and the applicable election laws, any challenge must be lodged within 21 days of that publication.

“The statute fixes the window within which a petition may be presented before the High Court is clothed with jurisdiction. That period is 21 days from the gazette of the official results,” he submitted, adding that the petition filed on 25 January 2025 fell outside this mandatory period.

He further contended that the High Court’s decision to hear the case breached Section 18 of PNDC Law 284, amounting to a jurisdictional error that is “plain on the face of the record” and should therefore be quashed.

Lawyer for the first interested party, Sika Abla Addo, urged the court to dismiss the application, accusing the applicant of “cherry-picking” which gazette to rely on.

She explained that there were two gazette notices in issue – one dated 24 December 2024 and another dated 6 January 2025 – and argued that the latter should guide the computation of time.

“In terms of Section 18, what matters is the existence of a gazette. The issue is: which gazette counts,” she said, noting that the High Court accepted the 6 January 2025 gazette as the operative notice and proceeded on that basis.

She maintained that, once that date is used, the petition was filed within time and the High Court properly exercised jurisdiction.

Counsel for the EC, Justin Amenuvor, told the court that recent election disputes have often involved multiple gazettes, including those circulated online.

Referring to earlier cases, he said that in the Akwatia matter, various versions of gazette notices were in circulation, compelling him to go personally to the Assembly Press to obtain the formally published version.

He indicated that he had adopted the same approach in the Kpandai case, again visiting Assembly Press to secure the relevant gazette relied on by the Commission.

The Supreme Court has adjourned proceedings to 28 January 2026, when it will deliver its ruling on whether the Tamale High Court’s judgment annulling the Kpandai 2024 parliamentary result should stand or be quashed.