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Release withheld results immediately — Court orders WAEC

Source The Ghana Report

The Accra High Court has ordered the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to immediately release over 10,500 withheld results of candidates who sat the 2024 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination.

This comes after four affected students filed an application on January 30, 2025, seeking the court to order WAEC to release their results.

The court held that the examination body failed to state the students’ alleged malpractices or examination irregularities indulged in.

The lawyer for the applicants, Martin Kpebu, argued that the action of the examination body infringed on the rights of the students since WAEC failed to explicitly indicate the reason for withholding the results.

He further lamented that the failure to release the results has deprived many students of the opportunity to go to school since several tertiary institutions have closed their admission portals.

“Further bad faith by WAEC is exhibited in DA4, where they state that the results were withheld due to alleged involvement in exam irregularities. It shows the respondent approbating and reprobating.

“In exhibit DA7 they say it’s malpractice, and the same is represented on the results page, but when it gets to DA4, the respondent says they’re involved in alleged exam irregularities.

“When one looks at Exhibit DA2, the respondent simply says on page 1 that these are rules and regulations for dealing with cases of irregularities, but in Exhibit DA2, there’s no comprehensive definition of irregularities. Indeed, one always finds examples of irregularities.

“Consequently, it’s our submission that this failure to pin applicants to a specific irregularity is a grave violation of the rights of the applicants as earlier submitted. Similarly, there’s no comprehensive definition of malpractice in Exhibit DA2, so once again applicants are left groping in the dark as to exactly what they’ve done wrong notwithstanding all the protection applicants and 10,560 others have been afforded in the constitution.

“The right to a fair trial is inalienable, so applicants acquired it by birth; that right predates the constitution of 1992.
“That’s why the constitution says those rights are guaranteed. They can’t be toyed with by the respondents just like that,” Kpebu explained to Justice Abature.

Kpebu further disclosed to the court that the examination council had invited the lawyers and the students for a meeting on the alleged malpractice but failed to state which offences in the invitation letter.

Counsel for WAEC, Melisa Amarteyfio, vehemently opposed the application.

She indicated that WAEC was not responsible for releasing results that had been withheld pending investigations.

According to her, an unsigned letter written by the applicants listing all affected students was delivered to the Council on January 9 but did not give the body time to respond and file their suit at the court.

READ ALSO: WAEC assures fair hearing for WASSCE candidates with withheld results

She prayed for their application to be dismissed since it was premature and preemptive.

“It’s evident that WAEC has always timeously tried to meet the student’s request. In Exh DA7 WAEC expressly indicated that these results had been withheld due to alleged exam malpractice.

On September 26, 2024, WAEC notified the general public that there had been exam irregularities at the different schools and had listed the specific infractions it had noticed and also indicated that the Council would take appropriate action.

WAEC went even further to publish a notice in the Daily Graphic (Exhibit DA4) inviting students who had allegedly been involved in exam malpractice to log onto their website for further details, Melisa noted to the court.

“This investigation is an administrative process that is ongoing and takes a bit of time due to the large volume of students allegedly involved,” she added.

Ruling on the matter, Justice Ali Baba Abature highlighted that WAEC failed to indicate what offences the students committed leading to the withholding of their results and should have done so.

Justice Abature later granted the application and ordered the examination body to release the results immediately.

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