General News of Tuesday, 8 October 2019
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2019-10-08We gave the police 10 clear days notice before demo – School of Law SRC President
Jonathan Alua, SRC President of the Ghana School of Law
President of the Ghana School of Law Students’ Representative Council (SRC), Jonathan Alua, has responded to claims by the Ghana Police Service that protestors did not follow formalities prior to their demonstration Monday.
Jonathan Alua has maintained that all procedures in accordance with the law were followed by students before setting out on the street to march to the Jubilee
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His comment follows a statement by the police that demonstrators did not furnish them with a five-day notice, per the law, to the planned date to present their petition at the Jubilee House.
Parts of the statement from the service read, “Police has therefore advised the citizenry that though they had the right to demonstrate, they must do so in accordance with the law. That required potential demonstrators to furnish the Police with a notice at least five days to the planned date (which was not observed in this instance).”
But the SRC president said the assertion of the police came as a surprise, adding that representatives of the students had given the police a ten-day notice instead of the five.
Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show, he noted, “It’s surprising that they will declare this as an unlawful demonstration. We wrote to the police on the 27th of last month (September) about the demonstration. So that is ten clear days ahead of time.”
Mr Alua revealed that without any reason, the police initially stated that they were against the protest after they (law students) received an invitation from the police the following Tuesday.
He added that after some deliberations between his colleagues and the police, the service suggested either 9th or 10th of October to which they objected vehemently.
“The police called us Tuesday to tell us they did not want us to demonstrate; for no reason actually. We were actually in a discussion briefly and then they asked us to step out, so they confirm. Then when we went back, they told us that they wanted us to demonstrate on the 9th or 10th so they will give us a date.
“But we are law students, we know what the law says. So, we went back, we wrote a letter to them on Friday telling them that pursuant to our notice on the 27th we have decided to go ahead with our demonstration and we can’t call it off because people are transporting themselves.”
