A lawyer with the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) is in doubt as to whether the EC exercised sound legal judgment in disqualifying 12 presidential aspirants from running.

Mr George Loh wonders whether the Constitution allowed the Electoral Commission to, on the basis of errors and mistakes, disqualify persons from contesting elections without affording them an opportunity to correct the errors as required by law.

The elections governing body, the EC, Monday this week, shocked the nation by cutting down the number of presidential candidates from a possible 17 to four.

It cited clear errors, mistakes and fraud for its decision.

But many of the candidates have accused the EC of vindictiveness, bias and plain lawlessness and are heading to Court for redress.

The Presidential Candidate of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has filed a case in court challenging his disqualification.

He was disqualified because one of the 432 subscribers, Richard Aseda, endorsed the nomination papers in two different districts – one in the Central region and the other in the Volta Region.

The business mogul argues that the EC had a duty to give him an opportunity amend his nomination papers and correct the error.

He cited Regulation 9 of the Constitutional Instrument (CI 94) which guides the conduct of the 2016 elections.

The relevant portion of this regulation states; "The returning officer shall inform a candidate that the candidate’s nomination is invalid where...the particulars of the candidate or the persons subscribing to the nomination paper are not as required by law or...the nomination paper is not subscribed to as required by law, and shall give the candidate an opportunity to make amendments or any alteration necessary, within the stipulated nomination period."

Counting on this, Dr. Nduom is arguing that the EC should have given the opportunity to correct the errors as natural justice requires and as the EC's own regulations stipulate.

Speaking on Joy FM/MultiTV's news analysis show Newsfile, Mr. George Loh who is also the NDC MP for North Dayi, said he agreed with the PPP.

He advised public office holders to conduct their business in a manner that will not create security challenges for the country.

Former Chair of the EC, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, he argued tried to manage the process in a way that gave everyone a fair opportunity.

"When you read [the] Constitution,...is it the intendment of the framers of that constitution that people who want to stand for public office can be denied just on certain grounds? he asked.

He raised questions about the sustainability of arguments that if the EC invited the disgruntled candidates to correct the errors it would have been acting outside the law because Regulation 9 (2) requires all such matters to be done "within the stipulated nomination period."

He said the fact that the EC accepted the filing fee of the CPP after a deadline and suspension of it verdict on Akwasi Addai's nomination until a later date because a legal case defeats this argument.

Mr. Loh also questioned whether the EC could on its own make finding that someone has engaged in fraud and proceed to disqualify a candidate on the basis of that finding.

"We must learn very serious lessons from this and begin to realise that when it comes to implementation of these things, we should do it timeously, we should do them with a lot more care."

He stressed that the EC had a binding duty "to ensure that the people were given all the opportunities to make sure that they correct all the errors."