General News of Thursday, 8 November 2018
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2018-11-08
Legal Practitioner Francis Arthur
The National Identification Authority (NIA) has been sued over the legal basis for its request for digital address codes as part of the requirement for acquiring a national identification card.
Private legal practitioner, Francis Kojo Kwarteng Arthur, said he was denied the opportunity to participate in the registration exercise because he did not have a digital address.
“I was asked to provide my digital address code as a requirement in the registration for the national identification card,” he told Joy News.
Mr. Arthur stated, “I was told the Authority would not be able to register me onto the national identity register when I could not provide a digital address.”
He explained the employee attending to him showed him the NIA law that had the address code there as a requirement for registration.
The legal practitioner said he had done some research after leaving the NIA office including going through the Ghana Post and Courier Acts and there has been no law in the country that mentions backing for the digital address, except a mention of it in the NIA amendment Act 950.
Mr. Arthur said, “I want the High Court to declare the digital address code an alien to the laws of Ghana; the High Court should declare it as an illegality.”
He explained that the unavailability of the digital address code should not affect an individual’s registration for the national identification card. “It does not have any place in our laws to the extent that you will be denied an identification card.”
“Also, I want the court to order the NIA to register me and issue me with an identification card,” Mr. Arthur added.