Case against AMA boss dismissed

July 15, 2008 (Page 3 Lead)

THE Accra Fast Track High Court yesterday dismissed an application for contempt filed against the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan (AMA), Mr Stanley Adjiri-Blankson, by an Accra-based businessman.
The AMA boss was dragged to the court by Mr Labib C. Seraphim, who was praying the court to imprison the AMA boss for contempt for failing to evict hawkers from the Knustford Avenue in the Central Business District.
Mr Seraphim had also implored 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.
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 Mr Seraphim and other shop owners.
It further restrained the assembly from converting the Knutsford Avenue into a market for hawkers.
Dismissing the application after listening to arguments from counsel for the plaintiff, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, and counsel for the AMA, Ms Selina Fenteng, in Accra yesterday, the court held that the AMA had ejected the hawkers as directed by the court.
Mr Dame had argued that the AMA had flouted the court’s orders by refusing to evict the hawkers but Ms Fenteng insisted that the AMA had carried out the order as directed by the court in 2006 and for that matter it could not be held liable if the hawkers had returned.
The court upheld the AMA’s submission and ruled that it could not be held liable if the hawkers had returned to the Knutsford Avenue.
It also ruled that there was no perpetual injunction on the AMA.
Mr Adjiri-Blankson walked out of the courtroom a free man after the court’s ruling.
However, counsel for the plaintiff, Mr Dame, said he would apply for a judicial review of the court’s decision because it misconstrued the judgement of April 10, 2006.
He said there was a perpetual injunction prohibiting the AMA from converting the avenue into a market for hawkers.
According to him, the AMA was enjoined to ensure that the hawkers did not return to the Knutsford Avenue.
In his application, Mr Seraphim claimed that the AMA had flouted the court’s orders by refusing to evict the hawkers, adding that they 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 for 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.