Natl Cathedral Brouhaha – Supreme court adjourns case

The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing of an interlocutory injunction application filed by the Convention People’s Party’s acting General Secretary, Kwabena Bonfeh Jr., also known as Kabila, to 21 November 2018.

The adjournment follows an application filed by the counsel for the plaintiff, Aziz Bamba, to enable him to amend his statement of case after both counsel had filed their joint memorandum of issues.

According to Accra based ClassFM’s report the court, presided over by Her Lordship, Justice Sophia Adinyira, adjourned the case to enable the lawyer to file the necessary processes.

It would be recalled that in the writ, dated 10 March, Mr Bomfeh Jr. indicated that he was seeking “a declaration that the decision of the government of Ghana to purposely endorse, assist, aid, partly sponsor, and/or support the construction of a National Cathedral near the State House of Ghana, for Christian interdenominational church services, amounts to an excessive entanglement of the Republic of Ghana and religion and, therefore, unconstitutional”.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo cut the sod for the construction of the Cathedral on the morning of Ghana’s 60th Independence Day at the National Scholarship Secretariat in Accra, but Mr Bomfeh does not believe it is the place of the government to undertake such projects.

For him, the government has no business meddling in religious affairs in such a manner. In similar fashion, he wants the Hajj Board, constituted by the government, to be declared illegal.

He has, therefore, sought “a declaration that the setting up of a Hajj Board by the government of the Republic of Ghana for the purpose of coordinating, supporting and/or aiding Ghanaian Muslims to embark on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca…” is unconstitutional.