COMMITTEE FOR JOINT ACTION GOES TO COURT AGAIN

THE Committee for Joint Action (CJA) has gone back to court after losing the initial bid to prohibit the Attorney-General and three television stations from the use of video footage of the committee’s demonstrations.
The CJA’s motion was struck out by an Accra Fast Track High Court last Monday but it filed today (Wednesday) for another motion on notice for interim injunction against the respondents seeking to restrain them from the continued use of its video footage.
The Fast Track High Court will on Friday hear the motion, which was filed by Mr Mahama Ayariga.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice K. A. Ofori-Atta, on Monday struck out the CJA’s motion for want of prosecution and awarded costs of GH¢150 in favour of each of the respondents, namely, the Attorney General, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), TV3 Network Ltd and Metro TV.
The CJA filed the motion to seek among others an order of prohibition to restrain the respondents from the further use of the images of its demonstration to protest against certain government policies in advertisements.
According to the group, the use of the video footage to advocate for a fiscal policy that it was against violated its rights, since the organisation disagreed with the policy.
It, therefore, sought a declaration that the inscriptions accompanying the images used in the advertisements that the demonstrators were unemployed was misleading and wrong.
When the matter came before the court, there was no official from the parties, including the CJA. The CJA was also not represented by any legal counsel.
The Attorney-General was represented by Ms Ama Jantuah Bamful while TV3 and Metro TV were respectively represented by Mr Eugene Glover Tay and Daniyal Abdul-Karim. GBC was represented by Mr Anthony Matthews.
Consequently, counsel for the GBC, Mr Matthews, on behalf of the other counsel prayed the court to strike out the matter in view of the fact that the CJA was not represented.
The matter was stood down for sometime to enable counsel for the CJA to be present but after some time there was still no representation for the CJA and the judge had no option but to grant the application.
An affidavit in support of the motion deposed by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa of Dansoman in Accra said he was the spokesperson of the organisation and had its authority to depose to the affidavit.
It said the group organised a series of demonstrations in various regional capitals in protest against certain government policies and hardships occasioned to the majority of Ghanaians due to taxes imposed by the government.
The respondents, it noted, were using the video footage of the demonstrations organised by the group to advertise for the imposition of a tax on talking on mobile phones, a policy that the applicants were against.
It said that on the said advertisements certain false and misleading statements regarding the employment status of the demonstrators had been made by the respondents.
The organisation said it had the right to ask that the images of the demonstrators should not be associated with messages that were false, misleading and which it did not either believe in or actually openly disagreed with.