Roundup: 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