By Philip Buda Ladu<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At least 14 political parties have given Political Parties Council (PPC), 7-day ultimatum to reduce the $50,000 provisional registration fees or face a lawsuit in East African Court.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A team led by Dr. Gai Chol Paul disclosed their stance in a letter of \u201cintent to sue\u201d dated Thursday, April 25, 2024.<\/p>\n The letter seen by No. 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper, is addressed to minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Justice Ruben Madol Arol, and copied to the PPC.<\/p>\n \u201cThis letter of \u201cintent to sue\u201d shall serve as a formal notice that Dr. Gai Chol Paul and other 13 political party leaders intend to commence a lawsuit against the South Sudan Political Parties Council,\u201d the letter written by a law firm partly read.<\/p>\n Gabriel Kuot Akok Deng, an advocate and legal consultant, who represents the complainants, wrote the letter informing the government body, of his clients\u2019 intention to commence a lawsuit at the East African Court after a week.<\/p>\n The dissatisfied political leaders\u2019 grievances were highlighted in the letter.<\/p>\n In early March 2024, the Political Parties Council issued a decision charging any political party seeking registration to pay USD 50,000 for the provisional license, which lasts for 6 months only, and USD 25,000 as the full registration license fee, making the total amount of USD 75,000.<\/p>\n On March 25, 2024, 14 political parties aspiring for registration delivered a petition to the PPC rejecting the exorbitant fees imposed by the council for the registration of political parties.<\/p>\n According to the advocate, the aforementioned parties didn’t get a response to date, and the registration deadline is approaching as the country prepares for the upcoming general elections in December.<\/p>\n The legal consultant said the lack of positive response from PPC leaves his clients with no options other than to seek justice before the competent court of applicable jurisdiction.<\/p>\n He challenged the registration regulation as an unreasonable, illegal, unilateral, and discriminatory decision being made by the Political Parties Council by overcharging the opposition parties, an act that amounts to a violation of the right to form a political party.<\/p>\n Advocate Akok echoed that imposing the excess registration fees is a way of denying the opposition politicians their God-given human rights.<\/p>\n He further argued that political parties are not profit-making organizations that are formed to represent the interests of their members, promote the principles of democracy and the rule of law, and equally participate in the political process.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regulation that charges the political party leaders to pay these fees in the form of hard currency is also a violation of government financial policy, which permits all transactions to be made in local currency,\u201d he further argued.<\/p>\n Advocate Akok now puts the government’s Attorney General on notice as he pushes forward towards a legal battle to fight for the rights of his clients.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would like to inform you about our intent to institute a reference before the East African Court of Justice seeking the cancellation and confirmation of the previous 20,000 South Sudan Pounds as the full registration license fee,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n The legal counsel stressed that due to the above-mentioned unreasonable and politically motivated decision of the PPC, they will file a suit against the Government of South Sudan if they do not review the said decision within 7 days of receiving this letter.<\/p>\n Gabriel Kuot Akok Deng, an advocate and legal consultant firm, further disclosed that they have enclosed a copy of their petition to the PPC with their \u201cletter of intent\u201d to the respective offices.<\/p>\n However, the chairperson of the Political Parties Council, James Akol Zakayo, earlier disclosed that some parties had failed to meet the registration requirement, including the $50,000 fees.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Philip Buda Ladu At least 14 political parties have given Political Parties Council (PPC), 7-day ultimatum to reduce the $50,000 provisional registration fees or face a lawsuit in East African Court. A team led by Dr. Gai Chol Paul disclosed their stance in a letter of \u201cintent to[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Jury-at-the-East-African-Court-in-Arusa-Tanzania.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24047,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24044\/revisions\/24047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}