Judicial Staff Sue Mother Association

Eight regional executives of the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG) have instituted legal action at a Sekondi High Court against 10 national executives of the Association, over their continued stay in office. The eight regional executives want the High Court to declare that the continued stay in office of the national executives, who are also the defendants in the case, is unlawful. The decision to go to court was motivated by the defendants� failure to comply with an earlier Fast Track High Court order. A Fast Track High Court Judge on March 5, 2012, restrained the JUSAG national executives from holding themselves as such, and managing the affairs of the JUSAG, until otherwise ordered. The ruling came after one Atsu Kornyoh and twelve other members of JUSAG brought a motion for interlocutory injunction to restrain six national executives. The court, presided over by Justice K.A. Ofori-Atta, in its ruling, ordered that an Interim Management Committee (IMC) be formed, comprising of the defendants and five other persons nominated by the plaintiffs, to run the affairs of the association. The court also ordered that a forensic audit be conducted into the accounts of the association, before the holding of the National Conference. Since 2012 when the Fast Track High Court gave the orders, the plaintiffs say they had not been complied with. It was upon this reason that eight regional executives of JUSAG, led by J.K. Aikins, who is the Western Regional Chairman of the association, has dragged both the IMC members and old executives of the JUSAG to the Sekondi High Court for an order directing them to organise a congress within two months, and a perpetual injunction to restrain the defendants from further holding themselves out as the IMC of JUSAG. In a statement of claim, Mr. J.A Aikins contended that in spite of the Fast Track High Court order for a forensic audit to be carried out into the accounts of the association, the defendants failed to carry out the orders, and have since failed to do so. Notwithstanding the failure of the defendants to cause a forensic audit into the accounts of the association, the plaintiffs contended that the defendants were extravagantly cashing out funds from the association accounts, and recklessly appropriating same. They continued that since the Fast Track Court gave orders for the formation of the IMC, the defendants have entrenched themselves in that position, and have thus failed to take any step to organise elections to elect substantive executive members to run the affairs of the association, as required by their Constitution . The case of the plaintiffs is that the defendants failed to organise the 5th Triennial Delegates� Conference of the association, as ordered by the court, to enable the association to decide on matters critical and consequential to its running.