A senior law lecturer at the University of Ghana Law School, Dr Raymond Atuguba has said Supreme Court Judge, Justice Jones Dotse erred by publicly commenting on the superior court’s ruling on individuals who registered to vote with their National Health Insurance (NHIS) cards.

In 2014, the Court ruled that the card was an unconstitutional document which cannot be used to confer citizenship.

Two plaintiffs; the People’s National Convention’s Abu Ramadan and one Evans Nimako therefore, went to the Supreme Court this year to ask for the removal of names of persons who used NHIS cards as proof of nationality to register with the EC.

The Court thus ordered “That the Electoral Commission takes steps immediately to delete or as is popularly known ‘clean” the current register of voters to comply with the provisions of the 1992 Constitution, and applicable laws of Ghana.”

There has been since arguments relating to the exact interpretation of the Superior Court’s ruling on the matter.

Justice Dotse earlier this week told the media that the Electoral Commission (EC) must delete names of persons who registered with their NHIS cards as proof of identity.

“…we [Supreme Court] said the use of the NHIS cards is therefore unconstitutional and it should take the opportunity to clean the register of those undesirable persons,” he said.

However, rule 3 (9) of the code of conduct for Judges and Magistrates, states that “(9) Except as otherwise provided in the section, a Judge shall abstain from public comment about a pending or impending proceeding in any court, and shall require similar abstention on the part of court personnel.”

Based on this provision, Dr. Atuguba during an interview on Accra-based Joy FM said: “He went wrong…It’s a public comment and he shouldn’t have. The rule says don't make public comment and even if you speak to a journalist off record, that is a public comment."