The Accra High Court has dismissed an application by nine people challenging the legality of the registration of SIM cards with the Ghana card as the source document.

The applicants invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court seeking the court to quash the decision by the Minister of Communications to make the Ghana Card the only registration document.

The applicants also wanted the court to quash a directive by the Ministry for everyone to register within a certain period or risk their SIM cards being blocked.

However, in a judgment, the court, presided over by Justice Charles Ekow Baiden, held that the applicants failed to prove that the National Communications Authority acted arbitrarily or in excess of its powers.

As part of the ruling, the court held that:

1.       The NCA has the full legal mandate to conduct the SIM registration exercise

2.       That the NCA has not exceeded its powers or breached the natural justice principle as there have been sufficient extensions of the deadlines for the registration exercise.

3.       The National Identity Register, 2021. Regulation 7 of L.I.2111 gives the NCA power to limit the National Identity document for the purpose of SIM registration to the Ghana card only.

4.       Dictates of national security and the need to prevent crime make it imperative that the NCA undertakes the SIM registration exercise