Case against AMA boss adjourned

April 23, 2008 (Page 3 Lead)

THE contempt case filed against the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri-Blankson, by an Accra-based businessman has been adjourned to May 5, 2008.
The case was adjourned to enable the chief executive, who was out of the jurisdiction, to be served.
An Accra-based businessman instituted the action at the Accra Fast Track High Court praying the court to imprison Mr Adjiri-Blankson for contempt of court.
Mr Labib C. Seraphim is also praying the court to impose a heavy fine on the AMA as an entity for refusing to carry out the judgement of the court, two years after it had been ordered to evict hawkers on the Knutsford Avenue in the Central Business District of Accra.
The High Court, on April 10, 2006, ordered the defendants to evict hawkers on the Knutsford Avenue because their occupation was unlawful and hampered the business activities of the plaintiff and other shop owners.
It further restrained the assembly from converting the Knutsford Avenue into a market for hawkers.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice P. K. Gyaesayor, awarded GH¢2,000 costs against the AMA but declined to award damages on the grounds that “the amount to be paid as damages could be used to mobilise resources to carry out the eviction order”.
At the court’s sitting in Accra yesterday, counsel for Mr Seraphim, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, said bailiffs had on different occasions not been successful in serving the chief executive.
Replying, counsel for the AMA, Ms Selina Fenteng, informed the court that Mr Adjiri-Blankson was out of the jurisdiction.
She said there was no basis for the contempt matter to be put before Mr Justice Victor Ofoe because it was another judge who had passed the judgement which Mr Seraphim claimed had not been obeyed.
Mr Justice Ofoe, who is an Appeal Court judge sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, advised counsel to make those submissions on a later date after Mr Adjiri-Blankson had been served.
On April 15, 2008, it emerged that the AMA had been served as an entity but there was no record to prove that its chief executive had been served and that prompted the court to adjourn the case to yesterday.
In his application, Mr Seraphim claimed that the AMA had flouted the court’s orders by refusing to evict the hawkers, adding that the hawkers continued to exercise absolute dominion over the Knutsford Avenue, with the active connivance and complicity of the respondents.
“The respondents’ wilful violation of the orders of this court, contained in its judgement, is infringing on the constitutionally guaranteed property rights of myself and other property owners on the Knutsford Avenue,” Mr Seraphim averred.
According to him, the situation was gravely hampering his lawful business activities and those of other property owners.
He further averred that in spite of the court’s clear order for the provision of vehicular accessibility to him and other property owners, there were still in place certain pillars erected by the AMA which should have been removed as part of the process of executing the court order.
According to him, he had, on numerous occasions, through his solicitor, brought the situation to the attention of the AMA but it had refused to remedy the situation.
He said the refusal to carry out the orders of the court was calculated at interfering with and obstructing the due administration of justice and in the event undermine the authority of a court of competent jurisdiction.
Mr Seraphim said the respondents’ blatant display of disregard for the authority of the court made them liable for attachment for contempt of court in order to vindicate the undoubted authority of the court to preserve public confidence in the due process of the law.