UG: Judicial Board declines to hear suit challenging appointment of interim SRC executives

President of the Jubilee Hall Junior Common Room Jimmy Adangbe and another member of the SRC General Assembly Godsway Boateng have attempted to challenge the decision by the SRC to invoke article 25 of the SRC constitution to appoint interim leaders.

The Judicial Board has however declined to sit on the case.

According to the JCR President, the Chief Justice of the SRC communicated that she has now completed school and so her tenure has expired and also constituting the court to sit online would be a challenge.

The respondents for the unfiled suit is the SRC president who is a nominal defendant in all suits against the SRC and then the legal advisor, which office is vacant now due to the resignation of Kwame Adusei.

In a suit attempted to be filed on their behalf by their counsel Daniel Nkrumah, the two students of the University of Ghana are invoking the original jurisdiction of the SRC Judicial Board under Article 44(1) of the SRC constitution.

Among other things, they are seeking a declaration that “upon a true and proper construction and/or interpretation of Article 25 (7) (a) of the UGSRC Constitution, the members of the executive committee to appoint the Acting executive officers does not include the executive officers removed from office or sought to be replaced.””2. A declaration that upon a true and proper construction and/ or interpretation of Article 25 (1), (2) and (7)(a) of the UGSRC Constitution, all members of the executive committee must be served with a notice about the meeting to appoint Acting Executive Officers and all participants at the meeting must only be qualified executive committee members.”

This is because the two contend that the current SRC executives should not have been part of the executive committee that met and appointed the interim executives per their understanding of the constitution. They contend also that the JCR President of Akuafo Hall who has been purportedly appointed as Acting SRC President does not qualify strictly speaking as an executive committee member because he has not taken the path for executive committee members as set out in the oath schedules of the constitution.

They also claim in their writ that the appointment procedure was tainted with irregularities and goes against the SRC Constitution.

They also seek the court’s order that after the appointments of interim executives are regularized, there should be no bar of current aspirants from being able to contest next academic year when most aspirants if not all, would be in final year which by a strict interpretation of the constitution will bar them from contesting.

In a statement dated 1st July, 2020, the current SRC president announced the appointments of the JCR president of Akuafo Hall Nana Kwame Ntow Frimpong and the JCR Secretary of Mensah Sarbah Hall Ruby Nkansah as Acting SRC President and Secretary respectively.

The statement added that a soon to be announced date will be communicated for the swearing in of the two who will then appoint a Vice President and Treasurer.

Univers News have not been able to reach the Chief Justice for comment on her administrative decision to not constitute a court to hear the suit.

It appears the SRC may not be able to hold elections to elect new executives to take over from the Isaac Agyemang led SRC administration whose tenure has expired close to a month now due to challenges posed by covid-19 and the inability of the SRC General Assembly to adopt modalities to follow through with the electioneering process.

Story by: Kwaku Asante Bismark