Premises of University of Ghana
The University of Ghana is praying an Accra High Court to dismiss an injunction application that seeks to nullify work done by a search committee set up to propose a successor for the incumbent Vice-Chancellor of the university.
The Institution argues that the plaintiff, Patrick Justice Kojo Ennin failed to exhaust the internal dispute resolution mechanism established under the University of Ghana Act, 2010 (Act 806).
The school maintains that this move by the plaintiff amounts to a blatant disregard for the clear requirement of the law establishing the University.
The University holds the viewpoint that the action which has been commenced against it “discloses no cause of action and/or is, in any case, an abuse of the process of the Court-Ord 11 r 18 of CI 47.”
A motion sighted Univers News described the assertion levelled against the University as “unfounded in the law establishing and regulating the school or its Statutes.”
The University also says that the “instant action is incompetent having been commenced by a writ instead of an application for judicial review”
“In any case, the application is frivolous and vexatious,” the University adds.
In May this year, one Patrick Justice Kojo Ennin sued the University for some alleged irregularities in its search for a new Vice-Chancellor.
According to him, the ‘inclusion of Mrs. Vesta A. Nunoo and Prof. Baffuor Agyeman-Duah as two of the three representatives of the University Council on the Search Committee, was in breach of prevailing law as their tenure, as members of the council, had expired prior to their nomination.
He believes that ‘as of July 31, 2020, the tenure of many members of the University Council had expired and the continued membership and inclusion in the work of the University Council of these members renders the activities of the Council, post terminal dates null and void and of no legal effect whatsoever.
Even though the Statutes of the University do not say that the three people to be nominated by Council unto the search committee must necessarily be members of the University Council, Mr Ennin believes the intended interpretation of the provision is in the statute and hence is seeking a declaration from the High Court to that effect.