The Court rejects a claim of contempt against the FDA

By Gifty Amofa, GNA

Accra, April 8
GNA – The Court of Financial and Economic Prosecutions of the High Court of Accra
Monday rejected a claim for contempt of court against the Food and Drugs Authority
by the Ghana Cosmetic Association (CAG).

That's why
granted GHG 2,000,000 to GAC in favor of the FDA.

The tribunal,
Judge Afia Serwaa Asare-Botchwe presided that the FDA should not
to be prevented from fulfilling its legal obligation.

His hands must
not be bound by an injunction, said the court.

The applicant,
CAG, had urged the Court to bind the FDA and its leaders for contempt of court
for its January publication on cosmetics containing mercury, steroids
and hydroquinone, which had been scientifically implicated to be debilitating
and detrimental to public health.

The Court declared
The FDA has acted properly by informing the general public of a damaging product,
adding that it was his duty to raise public awareness of detrimental products such as
like rotten sardines.

Mrs. Cynthia
Dapaah, the board of the FDA, had argued that the contempt would not be committed against a
public body in the exercise of its statutory functions.

Therefore, a
claim of contempt of the FDA would not be appropriate, particularly when the
the application was based on a pending injunction arising out of a writ of
convening and a statement, as well as a motion involving the supervisor
jurisdiction of the Court.

He said the
pending application for an injunction against a body established under a statute for
a particular function should not be entertained to prevent it from performing
this homework.

The court wondered why the applicant had
failed to move his injunction application filed more than 15 months ago.

GNA