Injunction to restrain IGP, Interior Minister over refugees…Court rules on April 24

An Accra Fast Track High Court has adjourned to April 24, ruling in an application before it seeking an order of injunction, restraining the Minister of the Interior, the IGP and Director of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) from taking further action, including the deportation of twenty-two Liberian refugees in their custody.

This came at the heels of submissions made before the court, presided over Justice Gyaesayor, by Nana Oye Lithur, a human rights advocate, and counsel for the detained refugees.
Touching on points of law, the Human Rights Advocate argued that the court had to determine the status of the refugees first and foremost, in order for Act 21 of the Immigration Law to apply.

It was the case of Nana Oye Lithur that her clients had not been immigrants, but were rated undocumented ones, who had by all reasonable efforts applied to be registered, and documented by the refugee board and UNHCR, but their application had not been granted.

Arguing further, she stated that even if the application failed, the minors among the detained refugees should be released.

Some of these refugees, according to her, had registered relations, adding that Article 12 of the Refugees Law, allows a member who had a refugee relation, to stay in the country as long as he or she was in the country, and entitled to all benefits.

Ms. Elizabeth Adjei, Director of the GIS, submitted that the status of the refugees should have been investigated, before concluding that they were not registered, adding that she had not got the power to repatriate.

Nana Oye Lithur held that the Liberians were not here as illegal immigrants, therefore, the immigration law, in this case, did not apply, as repatriation violates their human rights.

The applicants, she argued, are Liberians, and therefore ECOWAS citizens, and therefore do not need a visa to enter an ECOWAS member state.

“They came as asylum seekers not immigrants, and registered with Bujumbura Camp Welfare. During war times families are separated, that should explain why some got here earlier than others,” Nana Oye explained.

It was her contention that between the years 2001 and 2003, refugees who came to Ghana should be accorded procedural rights, because of delays in their application.

The Attorney General had not been able to prove that the application posed a threat to the security of the nation, she submitted.

Arguing further, she noted that the state should have come to court, specifically for the matter to be determined, when they realized the Liberian refugees posed a threat to national security.

“The Attorney General and the Director of Immigration are just relying on official flatter,” she noted.

Continuing further, she cited Article 296, which put a duty on public officers to exercise their discretionary power, in accordance to the due process of law, adding that Article 23 of the law also emphasizes the duty to act fairly and reasonably in compliance to the law.

She thus prayed the court to go into the basis of which the Immigration Service made the repatriation order, and further sought that the refugees be released as their detention was null and void, and lacked legal backing.

In responding to the submissions made before the court, Principal State Attorney, Mrs. Yvonne Atakora, argued that the motion was unfounded and should therefore be dismissed.

She argued that there are laws, which regulate the activities of refugees in a country, adding that people do not just walk into a country and attain refugee status.

According to her, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), and the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), organized a screening exercise and the 22 applicants were found not to be registered as refugees.

Under the UNHCR law, she noted, any foreigner who is not registered, is not a refugee and as such, cannot be recognized by the country's laws.

“Being in the country illegally is enough threat to the country, and as such, the condition under which the relatives of the refugees were granted status, ceases to exist for the past three years, because there is peace in Liberia,” Mrs. Atakora submitted.

The state attorney indicated that all refugees were being repatriated to their country, and therefore a distinction could not be made in their favour.

She continued to state that the Director of the GIS was enjoined by section 21 to repatriate people who were in Ghana unlawfully, or detain them in a police station, or an immigration detention centre.

“Their detention is only to facilitate arrangements for their repatriation,” she informed the court, adding that the action by the Immigration Authority was taken in consultation with the Liberia Ambassador to Ghana.

She then submitted that rights are not absolute, but go with responsibility, so they were not being held unlawfully by the director of the GIS, stressing that the Immigration Service had gone strictly by the Immigration and Refugees Act, which allows the service to repatriate the Liberian refugees.

The Habeas Corpus was filed against the Minister of the Interior and the Inspector General of Police. The two were to produce the bodies of the applicants and 22 others being detained in a cell at the GIS headquarters.

The GIS and Ministry of the Interior are to justify the continued detention of the applicants, and give reasons why the court should not order their release.

The 23 applicants were escorted to the court, by the personnel of the GIS.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), and Legal Resources Centre (LRC), are seeking an order of injunction restraining the Minister of the Interior, the IGP and Director of GIS from taking further action, including the deportation of the applicants.

In an affidavit in support of the motion, Theresa Cheddah Dogbey noted that on March 17, this year, she was among 630 women and children, who were arrested and detained at the Kordiabe Training Centre in the Greater Accra Region.

According to her she was a registered refugee with the UNHCR in Accra.

According to her, her 10-year-old daughter, Joetta Solo, who was at the moment resident at Bujumbura, and her husband, had been issued with refugee identity cards.