NAGRAT Contests NLC's Right To Sue

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday, 27 October 2006
THE National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) yesterday told an Accra Fast Track High Court that the National Labour Commission (NLC) has no capacity to file a suit for a court order to compel the association to call off its strike.

"At the time when the Commission came to court to compel NAGRAT to go back to the classroom, it had no cause of action," Mr. Archie Danso Junior, counsel for NAGRAT argued.

He was moving a motion in a suit filed by the NLC, asking the court to compel NAGRAT to call off its strike.

The NLC filed the suit on October 11 seeking, among other things, an order under section 172 of Act 651 of the Labour Act to "compel the leadership in particular, and members of NAGRAT in general, to comply with the Commission’s order to call off the illegal strike."

Mr. Danso told the court that there was no complaint from NAGRAT’s employer, the Ghana Education Service (GES), to warrant the Commission’s suit against the association.

"The suit was filed on October 11, and the Commission received the complaint from the employer on October 16. There will therefore not be any cause of action vested in the NLC to institute this action," Mr. Danso further said.

He said there had not been any dispute between NAGRAT and the GES, and added "if there is no dispute between the GES and NAGRAT, the provisions in the Labour Act will not apply. We are not obliged by the Act, to give notice to the Commission of our intention to embark on strike."

Counsel further argued that NAGRAT’s basis for going on strike was to get the GES to comply with the terms set out in a Memorandum of Understanding reached between them, the GES and NAGRAT.

He said as far as NAGRAT was conserned there was no dispute between it and the GES since the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education had once mediated in the issue.

The NLC, he said, should have had a present cause of action before coming to court to seek the compelling order.

Replying, Mr. J. Opoku Agyei, counsel for the NLC said, "The law does not make it a precedent for there to be a complaint before the Commission can take action and sections 138 and 139 of the Labour Act spell out clearly the functions and powers of the plaintiff.