Court restrains CJA from Peoples' Jubilee March

Accra, March 1, GNA - An Accra Fast Track High Court on Thursday granted an interim injunction restraining the Committee for Joint Action (CJA), a political pressure group, from holding any procession on Independence Day.

The Court ruled that no procession shall be held from March 5-15, but the order could be varied after March 15.

"The CJA or its agents or servants or any other organisation is hereby restrained from holding any peaceful procession or otherwise," the Court said.

"It is further ordered that for the avoidance of doubt, it shall be unlawful for any person or persons acting under the banner of Committee for Joint Action or any other organisation to organise and undertake any activities or procession in celebration of the 50th anniversary from March 5 to 15 without express permission in writing to the Police.

"This court has come to this conclusion cognizant of the fact that in times necessary the interest of the nation should override individual rights or parochial interest," the court, presided over by Mr Justice P. Baffoe Bonney ruled.

The CJA last month announced that it would hold a Peoples' Jubilee Procession on Independence Day in Accra from Kwame Nkrumah Circle to Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum where it would lay a wreath.

However, the police said they could not allow the procession to go ahead since they would be unable to give the demonstrators protection because of commitments during the Independence Day celebrations where scores of foreign delegations were expected.

The police filed an ex-parte motion for an order restraining the CJA from holding any procession on March 6.

Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr K. K. Amoah argued at Thursdays sitting that on February 6, this year the CJA sent a notification to the Police to hold a process through the principal streets of Accra to commemorate Ghana's 50th anniversary on March 6. According to him, on the said day because a lot of dignitaries would be present, every policeman had been assigned special duty and the Police might not be able to provide security for the procession. The police, he said, therefore asked the CJA to postpone the procession but the group declined saying they would go ahead with procession no matter what.

Mr Amoah said if the organisers went on the said procession, the mischief in terms of embarrassment to the state and foreign dignitaries would be unbearable.

When the court pointed out to Mr Amoah that the CJA had said the procession would be peaceful, he (Mr Amoah) said nobody ever wrote to the Police that he or she was going to hold a violent demonstration. According to him, each time, processions were often declared peaceful but they turned out to be otherwise.

He pointed out that where the said CJA procession was to take place and end was not too far from the Independence Square, where the main Independence event would be held.

Mr Amoah said intelligence reports indicated that other groups opposed to the procession would confront the CJA and that was likely to disturb public order.

He therefore prayed the court to restrain them.

The CJA said it wanted to provide "a popular platform for the masses as an alternative to the essentially elitist Ghana@50 programme". It said it wanted to underline the political significance of Ghana's independence as an important victory in the worldwide struggle of the ordinary people against elitism.

The CJA said it wanted "to celebrate Kwame Nkrumah, the pre-eminent strategist and tactician of the struggles against classical colonialism".

The Tertiary Students Confederacy (TESCON) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), a group calling itself the Campaign for Patriotism (CAP) said they would hold counter demonstrations. 1 March 07