In Ghana injunctions are not granted as substantive applications. That is, a party cannot apply for an interlocutory injunction to restrain another party from doing something if there is no substantive action before the Court.
Actions are commenced by a writ of summons or by an originating motion or by petition. So before an interlocutory injunction can be granted, there must be either a writ of summons issued or an originating motion made or a petition filed at the Court.
It is not the law that a party like the National Labour Commission (NLC) can go to court and make an application for an injunction against the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) when there is no substantive action filed or pending before the Court.
The NLC is used to acquiring interlocutory Injunctions against labour unions and serve same on the unions without any accompanying writ of summons or originating motion or petition. In fact that is the tactics the NLC used against the Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) on a couple of times. Today, they have repeated the same suspicious act on UTAG.
Interestingly, no Court hearing comes on after the labour unions comply with the orders of the interlocutory injunctions. What a suspicious injunction it is!
On the face of the above copy of the said injunction restraining UTAG members from continuing with their strike, it looks regular. But what makes it suspicious is the fact that no writ of summons supported by a statement of claim or an originating motion supported by an affidavit has been served with the interlocutory injunction.
It may not be lawful to advise UTAG to disobey what seems to be an order of the Court. But it shall be lawful to advise UTAG to go to Court immediately to pray the Court for an order to set the injunction aside as same is not lawful and therefore invalid.
In actual sense, this purported interlocutory injunction issued against UTAG is invalid and void but it will not take UTAG members to disobey it; it shall take the Court itself to set it aside.
No one will be wrong to call on the Chief Justice to investigate Judges or Courts or Registrars of the Courts that are able to grant the so called interlocutory injunctions when there are no actions pending before them. This will amount to an abuse of the Courts and same must not be countenanced.
