UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST
APPEAL:
ORGANIZING QUIZES AND LECTURES ON PUBLIC HOLIDAYS IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE
I humbly believe that it is time to take another look at the issue of forcing quizzes and lectures on students on public holidays in this university.
I do not agree that students’ acquiescence to writing dawn quizzes, though it has been seen as a threat to some of the students’ security, is a waiver of their right to enjoy and observe any public holiday.
The significance of observing a public holiday in Ghana initiated the enactment of the Public Holidays Act 2001, Act 601. In this Act, a public holiday was described as a day specified in the schedule, which include; New Year’s Day (1st January) Independence Day (6th March) Good Friday Easter Monday Eid-al Adha Festival (Hajj) Eid-al Fitr (Ramadan) Worker’s Day (1st May) Africa Day (25th May)3(3) Republic Day (1st July) Farmers Day (1st Friday in December) Christmas Day (25th December) Boxing Day (26th December) – Thus, the laws of Ghana recognise these days as public holidays.
The Act specifically makes prohibition of business on public holidays in section (4) as follows;
“(1) Subject to sections 1, 3 and 6 and subsection (2) of this section, a person shall not open a shop for the purposes of selling or trading or engage in a business on a public holiday”. However, exceptions are given to the following;
(a) Food or grocery shops;
(b) Drug or pharmacy shops;
(c) licensed restaurants or hotels;
(d) local markets for sale of food or foodstuffs;
(e) premises licensed for sale of spirit, wine, and beer under the Liquor Licensing Act, 1970
(Act 331);
(f) the running of an essential public service specified in subsection (3) of this section.
(3) For the purposes of paragraph (f) of subsection (2), “essential public service” means any of the
following:
(a) water supply services;
(b) electricity supply services;
(c) health and hospital services;
(d) sanitary services;
(e) air traffic and civil aviation control services;
(f) meteorological services;
(g) fire services;
(h) air transport services;
(i) supply and distribution of fuel, petrol, power and light;
(j) telecommunications services;
(k) public transport services.
The exceptions provided above clearly exclude schools. By the forgoing, it is obvious that non observance of public holidays is a gross transgression of Ghana laws. Hence, students, as citizens of this country, are mandated to observe these public holidays, and for that matter, any lecturer who coerces them into attending lectures and writing quizzes may be committing a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment as provided in section 5(1) of Act 601, “A person who contravenes section 4 commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred penalty units or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months or to both the fine and the imprisonment”.
If these lecturers, as some of them claim, are granted permission by the school or their faculties to have lectures and quizzes on public holidays, then the school (UCC) as a corporate body as provided in section (2) of the PNDL 278 (The University shall continue to be a body corporate and shall have perpetual succession and a common seal and may sue and be sued in its corporate name), may be liable for a breach of statute as stated in section 5 (2) that “Where an offence under section 4 is committed by a body of persons,
(a) in the case of a body corporate, every director or officer of that body corporate shall be deemed to have committed that offence;”
My plea or argument is not predicated on legal provisions only but also on social and moral significance of observing public holidays. Public Holidays are special days set aside to rest and remember the fortunes and the misfortunes that took place in that particular day. We give reverence to them because they have moral and social significance. To deny students of such rest and solemn reflection on such days does not auger well for the image of the society (UCC)
Since the university’s statutes are subservient to the laws of Ghana, I respectfully plead that such matters be taken serious. The ‘relief’ I seek in this appeal is that all departments will be communicated to, so that as a matter of necessity and urgency, such occurrences in the university will be abolished.
Thank You.
TONY HENRY ARTHUR
[LAW STUDENT]
0546170490
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