Are laws barring electoral offence convicts from voting constitutional?-Supreme Court to decide April 22
This stems from a case file by a lawyer and human rights activist, Fred Akwetey, who is asking the Supreme Court to strike down provisions of Ghana’s electoral law that bar people convicted of electoral offences from registering to vote or voting for five years after serving their sentence.
The Supreme Court of Ghana will decide on April 22, 2026, whether laws that disenfranchise people for committing electoral offenses as punishment are constitutional.
This stems from a case filed by a lawyer and human rights activist, Fred Akwetey, who is asking the Supreme Court to strike down provisions of Ghana’s electoral law that bar people convicted of electoral offenses from registering to vote or voting for five years after serving their sentence.
Mr. Akwetey argues that sections 27, 28, 29, 36, and 41 of the Representation of the People Law, 1992 (PNDCL 284) are inconsistent with Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution, which guarantees the right of every qualified Ghanaian citizen to be registered as a voter and to vote.
The suit, filed through his lawyer, Noah Ephraim Tetteh Adumtey, names the Electoral Commission and the Attorney-General as defendants.
At the center of the challenge is the claim that the Constitution exhaustively sets out the grounds on which a person may be denied the right to vote. Mr. Akwetey contends that under Article 42, the recognized limitations are that a person must be a Ghanaian citizen, at least 18 years old, and of sound mind. He says any additional disqualification created by statute is unconstitutional.
The impugned sections of PNDCL 284 deal with a range of election-related offenses. Section 27 criminalizes acts such as making false statements during voter registration, double registration, and using force to stop another person from registering; Section 28 covers the forging, defacing, or destruction of ballot papers. Section 29 makes it an offense to vote more than once or to vote when not entitled to do so.
Section 36 makes it a crime to prevent another person from exercising the franchise, while Section 41 imposes sanctions for bribery and undue influence during elections.
Under the law, a person convicted under those provisions may face fines or imprisonment, and they are also barred from registering to vote for five years after completing the sentence.
Mr Akwetey argues that this additional punishment unlawfully restricts a constitutional right after the convict has already served the sentence imposed by the court.
“The fundamental right to vote has unconstitutionally been curtailed by Sections 27, 28, 29, 36 and 41 of PNDCL 284,” he said in the writ.
He further argues that the direct effect of the challenged provisions is to disqualify “a certain class of people outside the limitation recognized by the Constitution generally and Article 42 specifically.”
While he agrees that fundamental human rights can have limits, the plaintiff believes that any restrictions on the right to vote must come from the Constitution itself. He thinks the Constitution does not list being convicted of an electoral offence as a reason to disqualify someone from voting.
Mr Akwetey is also relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Abraham Ocansey v Attorney-General, in which the court affirmed the voting rights of prisoners. He says that decision supports his position that persons who have served their punishment cannot lawfully be stripped of their franchise by ordinary legislation.
The plaintiff is seeking a declaration that, according to a true and proper interpretation of Article 42, Sections 27, 28, 29, 36, and 41 of PNDCL 284 constitute an unjustifiable interference with the right to vote and are therefore unconstitutional.
He is also asking the Supreme Court to direct the Electoral Commission not to exclude persons convicted of electoral offenses from registering or voting.
