Samuel Nartey George
The action initiated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo-Prampram, Samuel Nartey George, popularly known as Sam George, to prevent the Electoral Commission (EC) from holding a meeting has been discontinued.
This was after the High Court in Tema, where the case was filed, had struck out the action for non-compliance.
The court, presided over by Justice Eugene Nyante Nyadu, held that Sam George, after filing an application to restrain the EC from holding a scheduled workshop in the Ningo-Prampram Constituency, did not follow up with his statement of case to see through the action despite the fact that the EC entered appearance in the case.
Sam George and his lawyers were not present in court when the case was called, but lawyers for the EC were present.
The EC lawyer insisted that the applicants failed to comply with the provisions of order 55, rule 6 (2 and 3) of the High Court Civil Procedure Rules, 2004 (CI 47), by not filing a Statement of Case to allow the EC to respond to their application.
The court, therefore, relied on the non-compliance of order 55, rule 6 (2 and 3) of the High Court Civil Procedure Rules, 2004 (CI 47) to strike out the case and awarded cost against Sam George.
“Application brought under Order 55 is struck out as prayed for non-compliance. Cost of GH¢6,000 is awarded against the applicant,” the judge ruled.
When Sam George filed the application ex-parte, the same court granted his relief by putting injunction on the EC meeting in Ningo-Prampram and the commission had to relocate the venue to Accra where Sam George led some NDC hoodlums to try and scatter the meeting but for the intervention of the police.
Background
Essentially, the applicant, Sam George, an MP, through his lawyers – Godwin Dzah and Justice Srem Sai – in an application ex-parte, instituted an action seeking to stop the EC from holding an internal meeting with its staff at the Escape Hotel in Prampram.
Justice Nyante Nyadu had held that on the balance of convenience, “if the said gathering is not halted and ends up being a conduit for further spread of the Covid-19 virus and the applicant is infected, the resultant outcome may not be adequately compensated for by the award of damages.”
The court further ruled that “in the circumstances, in view of the fact that the applicant’s rights under the Executive Instrument 64 of 2020 which is his right to survive the Covid-19 pandemic is threatened by the illegality, the respondent is about to commit and for all the other reasons given including the pending application for Judicial Review, I am of the opinion that an injunction should be issued.”
“The respondent and all persons claiming through the respondent are to refrain from holding the workshop or conference scheduled to take place at the Escape Hotel, Prampram, from the 24th of April, 2020. This order is effective from the 24th of April 2020 to the 27th of April 2020.”