EC must remove NHIS card holders – Supreme Court judge

A member of the panel of Supreme Court Judges who ordered the Electoral Commission to purge the voters’ register of persons who used the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards as a form of identification for their registration has said the court was clear in its ruling.

Speaking to some journalists on Thursday, Justice Jones Dotse stated that “…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 noted that because “we also do not want to disenfranchise anybody so the Supreme Court went on to say that anybody who will be affected by that exercise should be given the opportunity to register according to the law and the constitution, period.”

The EC had insisted that the Supreme Court’s May 5 ruling on the voters’ register did not instruct them to delete the names of those who registered with NHIS cards as proof of identity ahead of the 2016 elections.

They further claimed that after studying the ruling, their understanding does not also suggest the use of any new process to delete the names of those who registered with NHIS cards, other than the existing processes for removing ineligible voters.

But Justice Dotse said the Supreme Court was clear and person’s struggling to understand the ruling “should come back to the court.”

“I don’t want to interpret the judgment but if anyone is aggrieved then they should come back to the court,” he added.

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