A Court of Appeal in Cape Coast has set aside judgment given by the Winneba High Court over the elections of University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) executives at the University of Education Winneba (UEW) branch.

The Winneba High Court, in November, 2017 annulled the elections, restraining the elected executives of the UTAG branch of the University from holding themselves as executives.

According to the judge, Justice Kwamena Ato Mills-Graves, the election was unconstitutional because the elections were only held at the university’s two campuses; the main campus at Winneba and the Ajumako campus.

The court’s decision was challenged by the elected executives and some lecturers at Court of Appeal in Cape Coast where the entirety of the decision taken by the Winneba High Court was set aside.

The three-member panel at the Court of Appeal presided over by Justice Irene Charity Larbi, stated that it was unable to affirm the decision of the High Court based upon the ample documentary evidence available. 

The court said the evidence weighs heavily against the conclusions arrived at the Winneba High Court.

The appeal, an interlocutory one, sought the enforcement of the fundamental human rights of the elected executives.

The respondents who are lecturers of the University exception of one, who belongs to UTAG.

They contested elections for the local executive positions of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG UEW) but lost the elections to the second and fifth appellants who were duly elected in the 2017 elections.

The respondents, after their loss in the elections, contended that the decision to deprive qualified voters of Mampong and Kumasi was discriminately and an affront to Article 17 and 23 of the 1992 constitution.

The respondents further described as bias, capricious and arbitrary the decision to deprive the respondents who contested in the elections their votes.

The High Court in granting the relief sought by the respondents in their application relied solely on the elections conducted on the September 15, by the Winneba and Ajumako Campus.

However, at the Appeals Court, the appellants annexed to their affidavit in opposition, documents which clearly indicated that the Kumasi campus also organized its 2017 elections for the Executives of the Association.

The three-member panel thus ruled that the application succeeds in its entirety and the decision of the High Court, Winneba dated  November 22, 2017, has been set aside.