UNIVERSITY OF GHANA MANAGEMENT IS UNDERMINING THE COURT/JUDICIARY ONCE AGAIN, AND THREATENING THE DEMOCRATIC ORDER.
In focus; it's 10th January, 2023 Release on Injunction order.
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By QAE
Dated 10/01/2023
On the 6th of January, 2023, eight students of the University of Ghana(UG) issued a writ of summons and claiming a number of reliefs.
An Ex parte Application for an interim injunction was brought on the 6th January, 2023 and the application was heard and was granted by a competent court after nearly an hour of arguments interspersed with hard- hitting questions from the judge who sat. An Ex parte application is duly sanctioned by the rules of our court and deployed given the right circumstances.
Sometimes, when the prejudice or harm or injury which will be caused a person or group of persons or let us say an innocent party, and an application on notice for Injunction, will be redundant/near irrelevant, as the horse would have bolted out of the stable, lawyers file an Ex Parte Application to urge the court,as a matter of urgency, to restrain the defendants or simply the one suspected to be in breach for a short period. The application is taken without notice to the other party. But quite interestingly, sometimes persons who were not expected to appear in court because they were not served have suddenly appeared or their lawyers have.
The quality of the grounds required for an injunction are not made less or detracted from because it is brought Ex Parte. As a matter of fact, a judge hearing an Ex Parte Application does not lower or is not allowed to lower the bar on the legal grounds and the standards required for a grant. On the contrary, Judges approach such applications especially when the facts, that trigger the suit, are contentious with suspicion and are on red alert. These I believe were the hurdles, legal luminary Max Logan, and his team had to surmount.
Judges are more inclined to be rigorous in their scrunity in Ex Parte matters than not.
As a safeguard, Judges are at their, "Devils Advocate" best. To secure a grant, the party must still show that it has a right, legal or equitable, the right is threatened immediately and that, if the right is not preserved in the interim while an application on notice is brought, the suit will not serve any purpose at the end of the day.
The difference between an interim injunction and interlocutory injunction is that, INTERIM order is Ex Parte and lasts for 10 days while INTERLOCUTORY, is on notice and lasts throughout the life of the entire suit.
An INTERIM ORDER is what 8 students secured against the UG to restrain it from góing ahead to implement the contentions, unreasonable and inhumane residential policy. Ex Parte applications including especially ones for Injunction are not granted lightly. The UG must be informed on that.
It is worthy of note that, before the 8 students took the writ and got an Ex Parte injunction, on the 6th of January,2023, the University had been served with a Judicial Review Application(JRA) brought on behalf of the OLD VANDALS ASSOCIATION( OVA) National. The JRA is challenging the residency policy which is intended to get all male continuing students out of the Commonwealth Hall and Sarbah Hall.
This OVA JRA was filed and served with a Notice of Application for Interlocutory Injunction. That Injunction is fixed for 20th January, 2023.
Despite being served, the University of Ghana, disregarded and continued with the implementation of the unreasonable, nocuous, financially burdensome policy. It was not respecting the notice of injunction. Yet the dominant position of law is to stop, once served with a Notice of Interlocutory Injunction.
Thankfully, and guided by good advise and driven by the passion to fight injustice, 8 students, with the fullest support of OVA, and led by Max Logan and a team of lawyers, secured that 6th January, 2023 Injunction.
Days after being served the Ex Parte Order, the University of Ghana Management, has issued a statement dated 10th January, 2023 to disrespect the Judiciary once again. Besides, and before issuing that statement dated 10th January, 2023, the UG Management had organised an online orientation for few students in violation of orders.
Sincerely, I wish the UG never authored this 10th January, 2023 statement because , the real essence of that statement, was not to acknowledge receipt of the order, as that is unnecessary and it was also not to tell the world that, it was complying. Far from it. The statement was an attack on the Judiciary, and this must not be countenanced.
In the 10th January 2023 statement by the UG on the order of injunction, the UG management suggested without care, that, despite all the documents put before a competent judge, the eloquent arguments and healthy exchange that went on in court, a competent judge of the High Court was incapable of detecting at that level, inaccuracies underlying the application for injunction.
More disrespectful is the suggestion that, plaintiffs lawyers told inaccuracies ( short of saying "lies") before a High Court judge and by his training, the judge was not competent to detect the inaccuracy at that level. What a sad suggestion to make to a competent Judge,???
I doubt if the UG took time to secure the proceedings on the day and the full ruling before issuing this letter imputing incompetence to the High Court. For the records, the Judge raised all the issues, the UG would have raised if it was there. Did the Plaintiffs lawyers provide satisfactory answers to the best of their instructions, that influenced the judge to exercise it's direction in the Applicants' favour? No doubt. The underlying legal issues were eloquently raised; had certain rights accrued to the plaintiffs? Why not., are the rights being interfered with by the obnoxious policy? Why not? Are the plaintiffs going to pay about ghc4000 per year as opposed to ghc 1500 per year. Definitely! Are there people who will not get placed under the random re-assignment of hall at all? Was there a 26th October, 2022 proposal on the residence policy which is being implemented? Is the policy targeted at only male continuing students? Yes, and is that discriminatory? Why not? There are many questions, but the University of Ghana management will have none or only few answers.
Notwithstanding, all these issues with supporting documents, the UG has the audacity to suggest that the judge was gullible to deceipt and granted the Order based on lies?
Let me reiterate that, citizens should not sit back to see, the UG insult the courts and judges by exposing them to ridicule.
The courts are all we have to hold the balance of order and peace in society. It is only in peace, can we realise our fullest potential. Any institution therefore which threatens the respect and undermines the institution that holds the balance of law and order is a public enemy. They are not friends of the democratic order. The UG is doing precisely that.
We must begin to consider every available and lawful means to reverse this blatant disrespect of the Judiciary.
As the days go by more parents are beginning to share the stories of hardship the policy is bringing on them. This is about the rights of people. This is about financial burden etc. This is about discrimination.
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