One of Ghana’s legal luminaries Sam Okudzeto
believes there is no legal basis to burden the Supreme Court with the
raging debate about religious rights in mission schools.
A writ has been filed at the Supreme Court to restrain the government
and all its agencies and private institutions from coercing students of
other faiths to attend or participate in partisan and sectional
religious activities.
A citizen Gershon Nii Lamptey wants the highest court of the land to
determine whether Muslim students should be forced to attend Christian
services in Mission schools.
The Catholic Bishops Conference Tuesday issued a statement asking heads
of all its mission schools to go ahead and enforce rules and
regulations that require that all students attend mass, irrespective of
their faith, so far as they have enrolled in those schools.
Lamptey in his writ said it is “unreasonable, illegitimate and/or
unlawful for students attending missions schools falling under the aegis
of the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education to be
compelled under the guise of promoting school discipline to participate
in religious activities endorsed and promoted by these mission schools
when such students do not share the faiths proclaimed or promoted by
these mission schools.”
However, the former boss of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has said
Lamptey is on a wild goose chase because the matter is at the wrong
forum.
“I don’t see any grey area anywhere for any Supreme Court action,”
Okudzeto told Starr Today. “From the name you’ve given it sounds like a
Christian name, so he can’t allege he is a victim or anybody has
discriminated against him for him to go to the Supreme Court.”
“The Supreme Court is not a toy where for every small thing somebody
dashes there for interpretation. If you are talking about the right of a
person’s belief it is contained in the constitution and the remedy is
in the constitution and not at the Supreme Court.”
According to him, “there is no constitutional problem arising in this
country in relation to religion” to warrant Lamptey’s writ.
“The reason why I asked whether he is a Muslim is because if you come
back to the protection of rights by the court, it is contained in
Article 33 and either he didn’t read it or his lawyer has no knowledge
of the constitutional provisions.
“That right is there. If you allege that anybody is discriminating
against you, you’ll go to the court to enforce it and you don’t go for
an interpretation and the court enjoined to do that is the High Court
and not the Supreme Court… he is misconceived,” the veteran lawyer
noted.
Professor Emeritus Francis Kofi Ampenyi Allotey,
a renowned Mathematician and Physicist has told Starr Chat host Bola
Ray that although going Solar can help solve Ghana’s energy problems, it
is too expensive for the country to explore now.
