Tema court dismisses NPP injunction application

The High Court in Tema has dismissed an injunction application by some aggrieved members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to prevent the party from organising primaries in the Tema East Constituency.

Justice Sebastian Adjei Frimpong in his ruling on Tuesday dismissed the application as being premature because the plaintiffs failed to exhaust the party’s internal grievance resolution mechanisms before rushing to court.

Background

Some aggrieved members of the NPP last week secured a court injunction restraining the party from organising primaries in the Tema East Constituency.

The plaintiffs in the case are the Polling Station Chairman for the Oklor Kofi Electoral Area, Evans Nartey Quaye; the Polling Station Chairman for the Padmore Electoral Area, Hassan Ibrahim Bancey; the Women’s Organiser for the Homowo Electoral Area, Leticia Armah and an aspirant for the position of Secretary for the Kwesi Plange Electoral Area, George Williams.

They had prayed the Tema High Court to restrain the party from conducting any polls in the Tema East Constituency using the newly compiled albums until final determination of the matter.

According to the suit, which has the Greater Accra Regional and Tema East Constituency chairmen as defendants, the plaintiffs alleged that the polling station elections held on January 20, 2018 in the constituency were fraught with irregularities.

Polling station forms

They were of the view that the sale of polling station forms started late at about 11 a.m. and that they were expected to complete and submit them to the Polling Station Election Committee (PSEC) before 2 p.m., which is contrary to the rules and regulations.

The plaintiffs further stated that all aspirants who completed their forms and submitted them at 2 p.m. had their forms rejected on grounds that nominations had closed.

They averred that the research officer and the elections officer, who were present at the time, collected about 500 forms but on the day of elections, they rejected them.

According to them, the Polling Station Election Committee (PSEC) chairman also did not give them the opportunity to participate in the elections.

The plaintiffs mentioned that they petitioned both the constituency and regional secretariats against the malpractice but they failed to investigate the matter.

The plaintiffs insisted that the polling station elections were fraught with substantial irregularities and illegalities and prayed the court to nullify it for fresh elections to be held.

Grievance procedure

The counsel for the defendants, Lawyer Gary Nimako, told journalists on the court premises that he was happy with the court's decision to quash the injunction application.

He said the plaintiffs failed to exhaust party structures before resorting to court.

“Our constitution has a grievance mechanism.

It is an elaborate procedure, from the constituency, through regional to national.

If we do not hear you, it is only then that you go to court.

You do not just get up in the morning and sue people in court because you have a problem; you have to exhaust the structures within the party before resorting to the court,” he said.

He added that the petition did not have petitioners, so it could not be entertained by the court; hence he prayed the court to throw out the application, which was duly granted.

Technicalities

The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Eric Essuman Adu, said he was informed by his clients that because they had issues with the constituency officers they couldn’t have petitioned them so they went to the regional level “but the court is saying that they should have raised the petition at the constituency level.”

“You go to court on so many grounds. At times, it is not every court that will accept technicalities, because if there is urgency such as they had at hand, you couldn’t have gone through all the procedures,” he said.