It was the considered view of the court that Article 94(2) (a) of the 1992 Constitution, which bars a person who owes allegiance to another country from becoming an MP takes effect at the time the Electoral Commission (EC) opens nomination and not during the election or the swearing-in of MPs in Parliament.
In view of that, the court held that Mr Quayson was constitutionally barred from contesting the Assin North seat because in October 2020 when the EC opened nominations for persons to file to contest , he failed to renounce his Canadian citizenship before filing to contest.
“We state without any equivocation that Article 94(2) (a) means that to be qualified to be a Member of Parliament, a citizen of Ghana must not hold any other citizenship at the time when nominations are opened by the Electoral Commission for registration of candidates for election as Members of Parliament,” the court held.
The unanimous decision of the seven-member panel was authored by Justice Nene Amegatcher, with Justice Jones Dotse presiding and Justices Mariama Owusu, Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo, Prof. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi and Barbara Ackah-Yensu, as members.
Effective date for renunciation
Another thorny issue was whether Mr Quayson could still be said to owe allegiance to Canada when he had applied for renunciation of his Canadian citizenship in 2019 but the renunciation certificate was issued by the Canadian government in November 2020.
Counsel for Quayson, Tsatsu Tsikata, argued before the court that his client did not owe any allegiance to Canada because by all intents and purposes, he had made it clear that he did not want to be a Canadian citizen again.
The apex court, however, rejected this argument and held that one could only be said to have renounced his citizenship of a country after completing the entire process and in this case be issued with a renunciation certificate.
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