Court dismisses injunction on commercialising of GMOs

The Human Rights Division of the High Court yesterday dismissed the suit for interlocutory injunction to restrain the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Biosafety Committee (NBC) from releasing and commercialising genetically modified food in Ghana.

The court said the state and the NBC were more likely to suffer if the injunction was granted.

The court, presided over by Mr Justice Dennis Adjei, also stated that reliefs sought by the applicant, the Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG), had been well taken care of in the Biosafety Act.

“Because of the provisions in the Act, the applicants are not likely to suffer any damages if the injunction is refused.

“The commercialisation of GMOs in Ghana will not in any way affect Ghanaians and the applicant negatively,” the court stated.

No authority

The civil society organisation, FSG, made up of Ghanaians home and abroad, claimed that MoFA did not have the authority to commercialise such GMO products. It therefore filed the suit to stop the MoFA and the NBC from releasing and commercialising genetically modified cowpeas and rice until the provisions of the Biosafety Act were expressly and fully obeyed.

The FSG averred that only the National Biosafety Authority had such a power to authorise the commercial release of GM foods in Ghana, according to Section 13 of the Biosafety Act, 2011, Act 831.

It further claimed that the Biosafety Act, 2011, Act 831, and the Legislative Instrument 1887, which established the NBC, had not been respected with regard to the authorisation of confined field trials and the conditions for a commercial release of GM crops, as it relates to the threats by the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute (SARI).

The case was first heard on February 17, 2015, the very day that the NBA was inaugurated.

FSG had originally sued the NBC and the MoFA, but counsel for the defendants requested that the National Biosafety Authority and the Attorney-General’s Department be joined in the suit as co-defendants.

The court subsequently joined the A-G’s Department and the NBA as co-defendants.