An Accra High Court hearing a case in which squatters at ?Sodom and Gomorrah? (S&G) are asking the court to restrain the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) from ejecting them, on Tuesday, granted an application filed by the plaintiffs to join the Attorney-General?s (A-G?s) Department to the suit.
This was after Mr Clarence Kuwornoo, Senior State Attorney, who represented the A-G?s office had announced that it was not opposed to plaintiffs? application to join the Attorney-General to the suit.
Consequently, Mr Justice Yaw Appau, the Presiding Judge, gave the plaintiffs three days within which to serve the A-G?s Department with a copy of the injunction restraining the Accra Metropolitan Authority (AMA) from evicting them from S&G.
Mr Justice Appau in adjourning proceedings to Tuesday, July 2, said that due to the importance the public attached to the matter, ?the case should not be delayed any further.
?I am suspending all my partly-heard cases and give the S&G case all the attention it deserves.?
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) announced itself as ?Amicus Curiae? (Friend of the Court) in order to monitor proceedings.
Mr Justice Appau assured CHRAJ that it had every earthly right to play a monitoring role in the case, but reminded the Commission that ?it cannot dictate to the court.?
About a month ago? the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPRIL), a legal aid and human rights non-governmental organisation, filed the suit on behalf of the squatters.
In the suit, the squatters were seeking an order from the court to restrain AMA from carrying out plans to eject them from Sodom and Gomorrah, a suburb of Accra, since AMA?s action would cause them untold hardships.
In their statement of claim, the squatters argued that since the intended action of AMA would infringe on their fundamental human rights, the court ought to order the assembly to either re-settle or re-locate them.
The squatters felt that since AMA was a government entity and the A-G as its spokesman on legal matters, it was expedient to join the A-G?s Department to the suit.
At its sitting on June 17, the court adjourned proceedings for a week when the A-G?s Department indicated that it had been short-served with a copy of the suit by Mr Ben Annan, counsel for the squatters, to join it.
