PEOPLE'S POPULAR PARTY v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL
1970
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HAYFRON-BENJAMIN J
Areas of Law
- Constitutional Law
- Administrative Law
- Human rights Law
- Civil Procedure
1970
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The High Court of Justice of Ghana considered an Article 28 application by the People’s Popular Party (PPP), a registered political party, alleging constitutional violations after the police refused permits to hold protest marches in Accra. The PPP sought to demonstrate at the British, French, and Ivory Coast embassies against arms sales to South Africa and proposed dialogue with South Africa; both permit applications—dated 7 and 12 November 1970—were refused without reasons. The Attorney-General relied on Act 165 and Articles 23 and 24. Applying constitutional standards, persuasive U.S. authorities, and Article 173’s fairness requirements, the court held the refusals infringed PPP’s freedoms of movement, assembly, and association. Declaratory relief issued, including a requirement that any future refusal be supported by written reasons; injunction was unavailable under the State Proceedings Act. The application was granted.
Article 28 of the Constitution, 1969, provides that:
"(1) Where any person alleges that any provision of articles 12 to 27 inclusive of this Constitution has been, or is being or is likely to be contravened in relation to him, then, without prejudice to any other action with respect to the same matter that is lawfully available, that person may apply to the High Court of Justice for redress.
(2) Pursuant to the provisions of the immediately preceding clause, the High Court of Justice shall have power to issue such directions or orders or writs including writs or orders in the nature of habeas corpus, certiorari, mandamus, prohibition, and quo warranto as it may consider appropriate for the purposes of enforcing, or securing the enforcement of any of the provisions of the said articles 12 to 27 inclusive to the protection of which the person concerned is entitled."
Articles 12 to 27 deal with the liberty of the individual and entrench the fundamental human rights in our Constitution. Anyone with a nodding knowledge of the recent history of Ghana will appreciate the reasons that led the Constituent Assembly to entrench these clauses in the Constitution and make them, by article 169 (4) (b), not amenable to change. It is not for the courts to question the wisdom or unwisdom of the drafters of the Constitution. All that we are concerned with is to give effect to these provisions and carry out their manifest purposes without regard to temporary or passing expediency.
The powers conferred on the High Court by article 28 (2) are wide in the extreme, but they seem to me to reflect the general intention of the drafters that the courts should be the custodians and protectors of the liberties of the individual citizens of Ghana. It is a duty which is at once onerous and honourable. In discharging these duties the courts must tread the narrow, humble but firm path between the Scylla of over-zealousness and the Charybdis of judicial timidity. Where the liberty of the citizen has been invaded they should by all means offer protection, but they should not try to find an invasion where none has occurred.
The gravamen of the applicants' complaint is that the police as personified in the Inspector-General of Police have interfered with their rights of freedom of movement, assembly and association by refusing them a permit to mount a procession through the streets of Accra to protest against the sale of arms by Britain and France to the Union of South Africa and the pro