Attorney General Says Achimota Cannot Be Sued In Rastafarian Impasse

The Attorney-General (AG) has made a contentious claim that the Achimota School and any other school under the Ghana Education Service cannot be sued.

This came up in the ongoing suit where two Rastafarian students had dragged the Achimota School to court for discriminating against them by denying them admission because of their dreadlocks. The school, meanwhile, allows foreign students to wears dreadlocks and full hair.

When required to file their reply to the suit, the AG, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education have filed a reply in the case involving Master Oheneba Kwaku Nkrabea-the Rastafarian student, that the school cannot be sued and that no school under the GES, for that matter, can be sued by anybody.

This contentious claim was made on Thursday, April 22, 2021, by Stella Badu, a Chief State Attorney. She told the Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court where the case is being heard by Justice Gifty Agyei Addo, that schools under GES could not be sued.

The Chief State Attorney used that excuse to justify why the Board of the Achimota School refused to file their response in court, requiring the AG to represent them.

However, the court will not have any of that excuse and ordered the Board of Achimota school to file their reply within four days.

Justice Agyei also served notice for the parties in the case to file their responses to the substantive matter within seven days instead of 21 days to expedite action on the matter.

The case has been adjourned to April 30, 2021.

A few weeks ago, the entire country exploded in an uproar when Achimota School refused to allow the students to enrol, even though the automatic placement system for secondary schools had placed the exceptional students in the school.

Achimota claimed their hair was against their school rules, despite the insistence of the affected students that their dreadlocks are as a result of their religious orientation and their identity.