A Court of Appeal in
Cape Coast has set aside judgment given by the Winneba High Court over the
elections of UTAG executives at the UEW branch of the University Teachers
Association of Ghana.
The Winneba High Court, in November, 2017 annulled the
elections, restraining the elected executives of the UTAG branch of the
University from holding themselves as executives.
According to the Winneba High Court judge, Justice Kwamena
Ato Mills-Graves, the election was unconstitutional because the elections were
only held at the university’s two campuses; the main campus at Winneba and the
Ajumako campus.
The decision by the Winneba High Court was challenged by the
elected executives and some lecturers at the Court of Appeal in Cape Coast
where the entirety of the decision taken by the Winneba High Court was set
aside.
The three-member panel at the Court of Appeal presided over
by Justice Irene Charity Larbi, in setting aside the decision of the Winneba
High court, stated that it was unable to affirm the decision of the High Court
based upon the ample documentary evidence available on the record of appeal
which weigh heavily against the conclusions arrived at the High Court.
The appeal, an interlocutory one, sought the enforcement of
the fundamental human rights of the elected executives under Article 33 of the
1992 constitution.
The respondents who are lecturers of the University of Education, Winneba – all of them with the exception of one, belong to UTAG.
They contested elections for the local executive positions of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG UEW) but lost the elections to the 2nd and 5th appellants who were duly elected in 2017 in the said elections.
The respondents, after their loss in the elections, contended that the decision to deprive qualified voters of Mampong and Kumasi was discriminately and an affront to Article 17 and 23 of the 1992 constitution.
The respondents further described as bias, capricious and arbitrary the decision to deprive the respondents who contested in the elections their votes.
The High Court in granting the relief sought by the respondents in their application, back in November, 2017, relied solely on the elections conducted on the 15th of September by the Winneba and Ajumako Campus.
However, at the Appeals Court, the appellants annexed to their affidavit in opposition, documents which clearly indicated that the Kumasi campus also organized its 2017 elections for the Executives of the Association.
The three-member panel thus ruled that the application succeeds in its entirety and the decision of the High Court, Winneba dated 22nd day of November, and 2017 has been set aside.