Lawyer Wayoe Ghanamanti who is the counsel for the two embattled Rasta students, Tyron Iras Marhguy and Oheneba Kwaku Nkrabea, has backlashed the President of NAGRAT, Mr Angel Carbonu for speaking against the ruling of the High Court ordering Achimota School to admit the two students.
An Accra High Court has ordered Achimota School to admit the two Rastafarian students it denied enrollment.
In March this year, Achimota School issued admission letters to the two students but indicated that they would only be enrolled on the condition that they shave their dreadlocks in accordance with the School’s academic regulations.
However, the Human Rights Division of the High Court presided over by Justice Gifty Agyei Addo, ruled that the fundamental human rights of the two students cannot be limited by the rules in question.
Tyron Iras Marhguy and Oheneba Kwaku Nkrabea sued the School’s Board of Governors, the Minister of Education, the Ghana Education Service, and the Attorney General to enforce their fundamental Human Rights.
The applicants asked the court to, “declare that the failure and or refusal of the 1st Respondent (Achimota School Board of Governors) to admit or enrol the Applicant on the basis of his Rastafarian religious inclination, beliefs, and culture characterized by his keeping of Rasta, is a violation of his fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed under the 1992 constitution particularly Articles 12(1), 23, 21(1)(b)(c)”.
Commenting on the ruling of the Accra High Court, the President of NAGRAT, Mr Angel Carbonu is believed to have said that the ruling of the court will pave way for all manner of practices to override the rules of various secondary schools.
But reacting to the comment on Okay FM’s ‘Ade Akye Abia’ Morning Show, the private legal practitioner chided Carbonu that his argument on the ruling is exposing his ignorance of the law as no school rule can override the fundamental human right of every child to education.
He stressed that the students are not keeping dreadlocks for a lifestyle but for a religious purpose and for that matter cannot be the basis for Achimota Secondary School to deny them admission into the school.
“When there is an issue, there should be further education to enlighten people, and so what our brother Angel Kabonu is saying in this discourse after the High Court ruling on the Achimota case will not help to educate people, because he is exposing his ignorance,” he chided.
He advanced his argument that Rastafarians cannot be equated to any unrecognized religious practice as Angel Carbonu tried to make it seems to be in his argument; adding that, Rastafarians believe in God and in the Bible with the exception that they don’t worship God from the role of Christianity.
Meanwhile, the Judge, during the ruling, argued that, on the probabilities of the evidence that were adduced before the court, she doesn’t think Achimota School and proponents, including GES and the Attorney General’s Department, have made a compelling argument as to why those two students should not be admitted, especially given their rights to education as well as their rights to express their religious freedom.
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